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TYNE FOLK 






TYNE FOLK 


MASKS 
FACES AND 
SHADOWS 



JOSEPH PARKER 




NEW YORK CHICAGO TORONTO 
FLEMING H. REVELL COMPANY 


M DCCC XCVI 





Copyright, 1896, by 

Fleming H. Revell Company 



CONTENTS 


PAGE 

Nathan Oxley 7 

Miss Black 23 

The Duke 38 

John Morra 55 

Discriminating Grace 69 

Jonas and His Church 85 

Richy Hymers and Mary . . . .95 

Jimmy 109 

Nickle’s Way 121 

Ralph Culver 130 

Arthur Boyce 193 



TYNE FOLK 


NATHAN OXLEY 

Nathan Oxley and his forerunners had 
farmed the great duke’s land for quite a hundred 
years. Nathan was a quaint old man when I 
knew him, and so very silent that one’s breath- 
ing made an objectionable noise when he was 
the only other mem.ber of the company. But 
Nathan talked with his eyes. He left you in no 
doubt as to his meaning. His eyes could ask 
you questions, oppose your notions, suspect your 
motives, and even bid you hold your tongue. 
Nathan had his odd little ways like other people, 
as I learned from his grandchildren, whose rem- 
iniscences, though touched by suppressed rural 
humor, were always affectionate and even rever- 
ential. There was one day in the week which 
Nathan called the “ Sabba’ day,” and that day he 
marked in many ways, notably by never shaving 
upon it, and never wearing a topcoat or putting 


7 


8 


TYNE FOLK 


up an umbrella within the rising and setting of 
its sun. It was useless to reason with Nathan 
about these habits; he got them from Nathan 
senior, and without them his soul would be naked 
and chilled. The weekly shaving was a formi- 
dable business. It was the last office of the week. 
The whole house was hushed. The boiling 
water stood on a little oak table, above which 
hung a small square glass just big enough to sug- 
gest that the onlooker might have a head, but 
not sufficiently suggesting it to give the observer 
any exciting certainty about it. Not a word was 
spoken by any one while scrape, scrape, scrape 
went the rough-edged razor, and not until Nathan 
breathed a final sigh did the tall kitchen clock 
tick with any sense of permission and welcome. 
I remember that old clock well, though I have not 
seen it for more than fifty years. On its face it 
bore, in yellow paint, the date 1742, and its ma- 
hogany case shone again in spotless cleanliness. 

On other nights the prayer was the last office, but 
on Saturdays the shaving was the final act. This 
was so well understood that it came to have some- 
thing of a religious effect upon the whole house- 
hold, and, indeed, in all the Horsefield region shav- 


NATHAN OXLEY 


Q 


ing became one of the minor tests of orthodoxy. 
A man with a beard and mustache was at once set 
down as an infidel and a foreigner and a revolu- 
tionist. The first idea that occurred to every 
one in the dale was that he was a Frenchman, 
than which no greater disgrace was possible to 
the Horsefield imagination. It was perfectly 
certain he could never go to chapel; and if he 
did not go to chapel, how could he possibly go to 
heaven ? But there was one thing worse than a 
beard, and that was to be seen on a Sabbath day 
in an unshaven condition. The first man might 
be a foreigner, but the second was a blackguard. 
He was boycotted all round. The man who had 
played cards with him on Saturday night would 
not be seen speaking to him on Sunday morning. 
I am not giving any opinion on the case; I am 
simply setting down facts as I have personally 
known them. 

The chapel which Nathan Oxley attended was 
strongly dissenting, and would probably accom- 
modate seventy-five people, though on anniver- 
sary occasions a member of the choir was positive 
that eighty persons had been crushed into it. 
By this rash statement she forfeited forever the 


10 


TYNE FOLK 


confidence of some of the oldest members, and 
even some of the young ones said they only 
spoke to her because they thought she did not 
exactly mean it. The pulpit was a box clinging 
to the wall like a large swallow’s nest. There 
was no room in it for a peroration. It was the 
gift of a widow, “ in memory of a husband who 
shone most brightly at home,” and while that 
widow lived not even the most daring and up-to- 
date deacon dared breathe a suggestion as to its 
enlargement. The illumination of Horsefield 
Chapel was by that favorite tallow candle known 
as a “ sixteen,” meaning, as I came gradually 
but not too suddenly to know, that sixteen such 
candles went to a pound avoirdupois. Upon the 
two candles which threw their yellow glory upon 
the pulpit a very delicate operation had to be 
performed at least twice during the service — an 
operation known as '' snuffing.” Only one man 
in the congregation could be absolutely trusted 
to execute that operation without making a fool of 
himself by turning offensively hot and trembling, 
as if he was climbing the final scaffold. That man, 
whose name is to be seen in the church book to- 
day, was James Blythman. As I sacrifice every- 


NATHAN OXLEY 


11 


thing to facts, and am absolutely indifferent to se- 
quence, I may say at once and with frankness that 
-Blythman was a blacksmith and a vegetarian. 
His local fame, however, did not rest on these 
petty distinctions. On a worthier pedestal 
Blythman’s genial personality was placed by his 
enthusiastic admirers. Blythman used to put 
the case very simply and strongly by saying: 

My bed has been sold from under me because 
I refused to pay church rates.” Simple as the 
statement is, there is upon it a little touch of 
rhetorical color ; for if the bed had to be sold at 
all, I do not clearly see how it could be otherwise 
taken. Moreover, the statement givfes the un- 
biased mind the impression that when the bed 
was taken Blythman was in the ecstasy of a 
dream. Coming to his special service in the 
chapel, I hope I do not sin against a good man’s 
memory in saying that the people had less fear 
of his snuffing than had the preacher. Without 
being superstitious, I must admit that things now 
and then happen oddly, and others will think 
so when they know that Blythman often crept 
up the pulpit stairs, snuffers in hand, just as the 
preacher was completing a climax on which he 


12 


TYNE FOLK 


had privately spent his strength. Blythman did 
not regulate the snuffing by the varying level of 
the eloquence. He simply waited until the black 
wick threatened to put out the candle, and away 
he went to cut off the enemy. It was remem- 
bered in the village for many a day that once, 
when a pompous stranger from the nearest market- 
town was preaching, Blythman snuffed the can- 
dles just as he was saying, “ Dearly beloved, not 
even the stairs of the sacred pulpit can protect 
its occupant from satanic approaches.” But 
Blythman had gone through too large an experi- 
ence to notice unintended allusions and magnify 
them into offenses. 

When the chapel was in any trouble 't always 
turned to Nathan Oxley. He loved every stone 
in its walls. His father and mother slept in the 
graveyard of the chapel, and near them lay four 
of his own children. Of his comparative poverty 
he gave largely to the chapel, though it was but 
one hard-earned shilling every Sunday morning. 
God knows how many pence were in that shilling. 
Nathan’s heart was in it. It would have been a 
poor universe to Nathan without that chapel, and 
poorer still without that singing before the 


NATHAN OXLEY 


13 


worldly clarionet was introduced. “ And that 
all came of pride,” said Nathan; ''and it was 
pride that got the angels out of heaven.” That 
musical instruments were popular in city choirs 
was what Nathan could well believe, for cities 
had never changed their real character since 
Sodom and Gomorrah, and everybody knew 
what had become of them and their upstart ways. 
That clarionet was a real trouble to the. simple- 
hearted old farmer. He began to hear it on 
Saturday night, and even on Monday morning a 
note of it lingered in the secular air; and the 
worst of it all was that his own son Hugh was 
the strongest advocate for the use of the unholy 
instrument. Hugh Oxley was in great danger 
of becoming a prodigal son. To his infinite hor- 
ror, Nathan discovered that Hugh took in a rev- 
olutionary paper called — profanely, as Nathan 
thought — the "Star of Hope.” What wonder, 
then, that Hugh was in favor of a clarionet in the 
chapel choir? But that was not all. His mother 
had long suspected that Hugh actually had a pen 
and ink of his own in his bedroom, instead of 
being content with the twill* and small stone 
* Quill. 


14 


TYNE FOLK 


bottle of black ink which stood in a corner 
of the painted dresser in the front kitchen. Nor 
did the calamity end even here, for Mrs. Oxley 
discovered that Hugh had abandoned the old 
twill and had gone the daring length of having a 
box of steel pens. She would not grieve her 
husband by telling him the alarming fact. '' For,” 
said she, “ he is a good deal troubled about the 
rent just now, and it would be cruel to add an 
ounce to his burden.” 

But what a burden she had to carry, and to 
carry in a mother’s brooding silence! May I 
name it? On the inside of Hugh’s bedroom 
door there was figuring in queer chalk lines, and 
under the figuring something like, 'Hf the an- 
gels ABC and DEF be subtended ” — a legend 
which she carefully removed with a corner of 
her apron, saying, Whatever can the boy want 
with angels and the a-b-c’s? It was a pity we 
sent him to that school at Blewton, for I am 
sure old George Adams, who keeps the night- 
school, could have given him all the learning a 
farmer wants.” 

Yes, Nathan was troubled about the rent, and 
Hugh was well aware of the fact. Nathan al- 


NATHAN OXLEY 


15 


ways acted as if he thought the duke was a kind 
of minor deity, surrounded by a covey of arch- 
angels called bailiffs, comptrollers, chamberlains, 
and deputies. All Nathan’s week-day business was 
to scrape the rent together, and his supreme act 
in life was to pay it. None of your newfangled 
checks for Nathan. All the money was put, bit by 
bit and week by week, into a big canvas bag and 
laid away in a chest (called the kist) until rent- 
day came round. On the morning of that hap- 
less day Nathan would mount his poor little trap, 
having first condescended to put on his topcoat, 
and, with the big bag in its largest pocket, would 
gently touch the old mare with the towiest and 
softest of whips, and move away to the duke’s 
gold-laden counter. It is not too much to say 
that the paying of that rent was a kind of blood- 
shedding. Sovereign by sovereign the money 
was counted out by Nathan’s weather-yellowed 
hand, and with a swoop the receiving clerk 
swept it into the ducal till. On the day now 
immediately in view Nathan was unable to go, 
and Hugh took his place. The mother said 
there would be mischief if Hugh met the duke, 
but Nathan smiled at her simplicity in imagining 


16 


TYNE FOLK 


that the duke would ever come within the range 
of a peasant’s eyes. 

'‘You must have a poor idea of dukes,” said 
Nathan, “ if you think Hugh will ever see one. 
Why, father never saw one, and I never saw one, 
and I never saw any man ’t saw one. There!” 

“ I only go by what Hugh said,” the mother 
replied. 

“ And what might that be? ” said Nathan. 

“ Why, I am almost ashamed to tell. He said 
there shouldn’t be any dukes — leastways, they 
shouldn’t hold the land. He said the land 
should by rights belong to everybody, and he 
said he could prove it from the Bible.” 

“ But,” said Nathan, “ there are lots o’ dukes 
named in the Bible.” 

“ But is there any good said about one o’ 
them? ” 

“ Nay, that’s more’n I can tell,” said Nathan. 

“You’ll see now,” said Mrs. Oxley, “what I 
mean by mischief coming if Hugh sees the duke. 
He would be a stately big duke ’t could frighten 
Hugh, and Hugh’s got a temper ’t catches fire 
like tunder.” 

“Tunder” was the local pronunciation for 


NATHAN OXLEY 


17 


“ tinder,” the burnt rag that caught the sparks 
struck from flint and steel. 

Aye,” said Nathan, “ there’ll soon be no 
tunder.” 

“ As long as 1 live there’ll be tunder,” said 
Mrs. Oxley ; “ on that my mind’s made up. 
None of your whizzing and smoking and ill- 
smelling lucifers for me. Where will poor hon- 
est people be when dukes and tunder and things 
are all done with? It is something terrible to 
think on. I wish Hugh was safely back again.” 

It was just two o’clock on a sunny afternoon 
when Hugh sprang from the quaking old shay, 
and greeted his father and mother with a bois- 
terousness suggestive of rent-day ale, or would 
have been if they had not known that Hugh was, 
as to drink, a Nazarite from his birth. 

Whatever’s the matter, hinny ? ” said the 
mother. 

” And well you may ask,” said Hugh. You 
are lucky people to have a son that can take the 
rent and pay it in like a man. Father, where do 
you think I’ve been?” 

Nathan fixed his interrogative eyes upon his 
radical son. 


18 


TYNE FOLK 


“I’ll tell you. I’ve been closeted with the boss! ” 

“ Whatever do you mean? ” cried the mother. 

“ The boss,” said Hugh, laying a hand on her 
shoulder. 

He might as well have said with the ichthyo- 
saurus, for the senior Oxleys did not know the 
new English of the “ Star of Hope.” 

“ Boy,” said the father, with heartfelt pride, 
“ sit down and talk slowly. When a man talks 
fast I think he is telling lies.” Nathan felt sure 
that Hugh had good news. 

“ Can anything good come from dukes? ” said 
Hugh. 

“ Oh yes,” the mother replied. “ I have al- 
ways understood, and I can prove it, that black 
hens lay white eggs.” 

“ But this is not a hen ; this is an old game^ 
cock, and I will tell you how he has been crow- 
ing. Father, would you like a grass farm instead 
of this beastly arable hole? ” 

“ Very much indeed,” said Nathan. 

“ And you, mother? ” 

“ Why, I should sleep better in wet weather.” 

“ Of course. Now don’t excite yourselves. 
Don’t bring on neuralgia. If you like you can 


NATHAN OXLEY 


19 


have Westfield, three hundred acres arable, and 
half the rent you are now paying for two hun- 
dred acres of barren clay.” Hugh threw up the 
window and briefly whistled. The lightsome 
young heart must whistle. 

” I feel more like singing than whistling,” said 
Nathan. 

“ No law against it, father. Shall I fetch Jim 
Crosbie to help you with his clarionet?” 

Nathan thought that if ever a clarionet could 
help the exercise of divine praise, it would be 
under circumstances so full of blessing and so 
rich with comfort. 

“But stop a moment,” said Hugh; “the rent 
is low, but the premium is high.” 

“The what, Hugh?” 

“The entrance price.” 

“ We have no money, my boy,” said the de- 
spondent Nathan. 

“ And they want none,” Hugh replied. 

“ Now, Hugh,” said Nathan, “ you are making 
my head spin round. Do talk slowly. Ever 
since you came from the school at Blewton your 
tongue has galloped at such a rate I really could 
not understand you.” 


20 


TYNE FOLK 


“ Father,” said Hugh, ” when you are behind 
the mare, that decorous old beast flies along the 
road at the rate of one mile in forty minutes. 
You like that dangerous pace. I will adopt it. 
Well, the boss who grabs the rent — ” 

“ You mean the duke’s officer who receives it.” 

'' I mean the highwayman who collars it.” 

“ For shame!” sighed the mother. 

“ The benign and bland-spoken gentleman with 
the frilled shirt who does Mr. Nathan Oxley the 
infinite kindness of taking all the money out of 
which he can cheat his belly and his back every 
six months — ” 

“ O Hugh, what language!” 

'‘Yes, mother, these are plain terms, and I 
won’t put a rag on their bareness; that saintly 
and benevolent gentleman desired my august 
presence in his private office, which with ecclesi- 
astical humor he called his sanctum, and I went 
in with unbecoming audacity.” 

“ Hugh, you are going too fast.” 

“ Then, father, I will accommodate you by 
pulling up.” 

“Thank you.” 

“The thief — I mean the benevolent gentle- 


NATHAN OXLEY 


21 


man, the too-good-for-this-world man — began 
by calling me Mr. Hugh! I felt an earwig in 
my ear. ‘ Mr. Hugh,’ says he, ' I regret your 
father’s absence, but I am glad to send him a 
message through his son.’ Here he took a pinch 
of snuff and invited me to take one. Mother 
knows how such delicacies are wasted on me. 
‘ We respect Mr. Oxley,’ said the sweet brother 
born for adversity, ' and we wish to make a 
friendly and, I trust, an acceptable proposal to 
him.’ Here he began to talk slowly enough even 
for father. ' Hopkins is leaving Westfield. 
Hopkins has always adopted»the duke’s politics 
both in church and state,’ — ‘ and you are glad to 
get rid of him,’ I interrupted, whereat the man 
stared at me, and took a second dip into the sil- 
ver snuff-box, — ' and we want to find a successor 
who will follow his useful example, and we 
thought that Mr. Oxley might be prepared to 
consider how far, under the special circumstances, 
he could meet the duke, for I assure you the 
generous proposal originated with the duke him- 
self.’ At that point I jumped up and said I would 
tell you, and then I rushed at the door like a 
mad bull.” 


22 


TYNE FOLK 


Hugh removed the perspiration from his fore- 
head, and continued : 

“ Now, father, you can get rid of the chapel 
and the clarionet and everything else about the 
blessed place, and you can bask in the sunny 
smile of my lord, his Grace the duke.” 

Get rid of the chapel, Hugh? ” 

*‘Yes, and go to church with real gentlemen, 
and hear an organ.” 

Rid of the chapel?” said the old man, mus- 
ingly. 

''Yes, and bury your principles where you 
buried your father. What’s your answer? ” 

" If I forget thee, my father’s sanctuary, may 
my right hand forget her cunning!” 

" Give me that right hand, father. I knew it. 
My old father is duke enough for me.” 

And the birds sang on the trees, while the 
sunlight played on their quivering breasts. 


MISS BLACK 


Hugh Oxley delighted in few things more 
heartily than that on one side of the road that 
ran through the village of Horsefield the duke 
had not an inch of land. The turnpike broadly 
marked the boundary of each property. On the 
free side stood the chapel, and not far from the 
chapel, though round a corner, stood a neat, 
clean-looking little palace of a cottage, in which 
resided the most dainty and dapper little lady in 
all the region. Miss Black, who was fifty years old 
and not ashamed of it. So very compact was 
Miss Black that she might have been a hundred 
and fifty without casting any reflection upon the 
nature that had forgotten to take her to heaven. 
To all public seeming Miss Black lived mainly to 
entertain the missionary deputation that annually 
visited Horsefield. It would be a grievous mis- 
23 


24 


TYNE FOLK 


take on the part of any sordid and jealous person 
to suppose that the entertainment was a supper 
which could be extinguished by any number of 
complimentary adjectives. It was a supper with 
a moral history, and, like every good text, it fell 
spontaneously into three divisions, with many a 
sappy subdivision, and a good many allusions and 
applications of a personal kind. In shadowy de- 
sign the supper always began about six weeks 
before the deputation was due; then came the 
hour of agony, when the supper was actually on 
the table; and then followed six weeks of retro- 
spection, with many a reminiscence which the 
favored guests would not willingly let die. The 
supper, therefore, was practically three months 
long, and at length, indeed, it was so much in evi- 
dence that it subtly affected the whole year. 
Only on one occasion did Miss Black fail to sup- 
ply the supper, in consequence of domestic be- 
reavement; and on that occasion, Mrs. Jones, the 
chemist’s wife, filled the vacancy so clumsily that 
a leading member of the deputation declared that 
if that sort of thing was repeated he would turn 
his attention to other places, or give up deputa- 
tion work in disgust. Miss Black heard of the 


MISS BLACK 


25 


incident, and diligently inquired how far and in 
what precise particulars it was true. 

Of course,” said she, “ Mrs. Jones has not 
had my experience.” 

“No, my dear,” said the wheelwright’s wife; 
“ and she never can have your taste — and that 
is going to the root of the matter. A missionary 
supper is not a thing that anybody can take up.” 

“ And one of the deputation was very angry, 
I believe? ” 

“ Oh, that was only Friar Tuck,” said the 
wheelwright’s wife, “ and nobody minds what he 
froths and fumes about. There’s too much of 
him to be all good through and through ; his skin 
shines more than his mind.” 

The woman was substantially right. Friar 
Tuck, as he was significantly called, was what is 
commonly, though not delicately, known as a 
genuine humbug. He was always first at the 
supper-table, and nothing would move him from 
his seat, though a dozen ladies might be standing. 
He would take the breast of a fowl with just a 
slice of tongue and a spoonful of salad, and then, 
with a flippant joke or two, he didn’t mind, he 
said, if he could have just a taste of the pigeon- 


2C 


TYNE FOLK 


pie. “ Miss Black’s pigeon-pies are so very nice ; 
they leave a long, lasting, pleasant taste in the 
mouth. I joke my wife about them, and tell her 
she should come down and take lessons. No, 
thank you, I won’t take any more tongue ; but I 
wouldn’t mind just paying my respects briefly 
to the Melton Mowbray, for I often say that 
deputation work wakens up the appetite. Thank 
you ; that’s enough. I must leave a corner for 
the sweets of life.” 

Do you suppose such men were popular at 
Horsefield? Then I should be ashamed of the 
Horsefield people. No ; they saw through the 
fraud, and in their own way they resented it. 
They always took it out of Friar Tuck when 
he spoke at the meeting. He was permitted to 
rise in silence, and to proceed in silence, and to 
sit down in silence. At one point he was always 
applauded to the echo, and that was when he said 
he need not trouble his hearers with any further 
remarks. Then the house rose at him, and, with 
a smile on his honest face, Blythman snuffed the 
candles as a welcome to the next speaker. 

Miss Black’s annual missionary supper always 
had a pleasant appendix in the form of distribut- 


MISS BLACK 


27 


ing fragments among the poor on the following 
day. That was just as daintily done as the sup- 
per itself. Pieces of fowl and tongue sandwiches 
were done up in white paper and tied with white 
ribbon, and in some well-known cases were neatly 
addressed. The poor were not treated as dogs. 
Miss Black said the poor had feelings just the 
same as other people, and she would treat them 
as she would like to be treated herself. Of 
course the Horsefield people were human. Some 
of them knew exactly when the missionary sup- 
per was due, and some intentionally remained 
unwell the whole day following the supper. The 
doctor, they said, perhaps with an explicable 
stretch of imagination, had ordered them a little 
fowl ; and one man, the whitest-faced man in the 
whole world, hinted, in a manner which exqui- 
sitely combined circumlocution with definiteness, 
that the doctor had strongly recommended pork- 
pie. Some doubt was thrown on this man’s word 
by people who said they knew him well, but Miss 
Black said they had better err on the side of 
charity if they had to err at all, so half a Melton 
Mowbray was taken to him as he stretched him- 
self on two chairs in his bedroom. 


28 


TYNE FOLK 


“ And how is the missionary business going 
on, miss?” 

“ Oh, very well, Robert ; we had a good meet- 
ing.” 

And good victual after it, I can see,” eying 
the pork-pie. “ I do hope,” he continued, “ mis- 
sionaries will go on as long as I live. I don’t 
see why they shouldn’t. And mostly among 
the blacks, so far as I hear. Now that’s some- 
thing I cannot understand; how anybody can 
live among the blacks, and not a relation within 
a thousand miles, gets over me completely; but 
thank you, and thank Miss Black, and say how 
much I think of her goodness in sending me such 
a pie. I call it a valentine. Good day, miss. 
I won’t do myself no harm, you may be sure. 
Eating and drinking is two different things.” 

The Sunday after the missionary meeting was 
always a time of friendly excitement. Miss Black 
was, of course, a prominent figure. The resi- 
dent minister was too tired to take both services, 
and it was often difficult to find a supply for the 
second occasion. The people said they liked to 
hear a layman now and then, and one man went 
so far as to say that he would like to hear a lay- 


MISS BLACK 


29 


man always. But that man worked in By lam 
pit, about two miles nearer the river, and few 
people paid any attention to his wild notions. 
Some people, indeed, did not care to sit near 
him in chapel ; for do what he would in the way 
of washing and dressing, there were coaly sug- 
gestions about him which did not increase his 
popularity as a regular attendant. His preference 
for laymen, therefore, was severely discredited. 
What was to be done on this particular occasion ? 
To the surprise of every one, Hugh Oxley said he 
would take a turn at the pulpit, as he had some- 
thing on his mind which he must get off or die. 
So be it then, said the leading men, and so it 
was. Horsefield little dreamed what it was to 
hear that night. In fact, Hugh himself little 
dreamed how far on his passion would carry 
him as to words, though in cool judgment he had 
marked out the course of his argument. Prob- 
ably it was the novelty of the occasion which 
made Hugh rush at his subject at once, without 
heeding what are called the preliminaries of pub- 
lic worship. Hugh gave out as his text, “The 
earth is the Lord’s.” To what lengths he went 
in his democratic zeal may be inferred from the 


30 


TYNE FOLK 


fact that no fewer than seven times — counted by 
a Sunday-school teacher — did Blythman creep 
up the stairs and snuff the pulpit candles, and 
once he gave the snuffers such a snap as signified 
to some of the hearers thaf he would like to snuff 
off the head of the rampant idiot. The harangue 
was all about the tenure of land, the sorrows of 
tenants, and the cruelty of rent. 

“ Is there in all this countryside,” cried Hugh, 
a godlier soul than my old father, Nathan Ox- 
ley of Horsefield Farm; that pit of clay, that pit 
of death ? What is his fate in life ? I know him. 
I live with him. I work for him. I hear the 
sighing of his bitter trouble, and I, his own flesh 
and blood, cannot help him. He must scrape 
together a hundred and fifty pounds a year for 
his Grace the duke, and I tell you he cannot do 
it. No mortal man can do it. You send mis- 
sionaries to the blacks ; why don’t you send mis- 
sionaries to the dukes? The other day the duke 
gave three hundred pounds for a deerhound, and 
my father has to count the cost of every meal he 
eats. Not long since the duke paid a thousand 
pounds for a picture, and my poor old mother, a 
very saint and angel, can only get a new gown to 


MISS BLACK 


31 


her back once in three years. I ask you, men, 
— if you are men, and not mere clods, — if there 
is not something wrong somewhere, and I ask 
you to find out that wrong and destroy it.” 

Blythman tremblingly snuffed one candle. 

“ What is my own condition,” Hugh contin- 
ued, “and what is my prospect in life? I have 
had a little more schooling than some of you, be- 
cause our old folks did scrape money enough to 
send me to Blewton for a term or two, just 
enough to excite my hunger, but far from enough 
to satisfy it ; but what is my outlook ? — and what 
my outlook is your outlook is, and I ask you to 
think about it. We must work for the duke, pay 
for his dogs, pay for his gamekeepers, pay for all 
his grandeur, and think ourselves lucky if we can 
put by enough for our funeral expenses. Good 
heavens ! is this right ? Is it not wrong in its very 
soul? Does it not cry out like blood, and appeal 
to the very spirit of justice for holy vengeance? ” 

Widow Jones, the chapel-keeper, who wore a 
Paisley shawl and a straw bonnet, went out. 

“ I should like a few books, such as a good 
history of England, a good copy of Shakespeare, 
a first-rate English dictionary, and I should like 


32 


TYNE FOLK 


to have a map of the world, to show me what a 
bit of a place this Horsefield is, and what room 
the Almighty has given us to roam in and work 
in if we could only get at it. Are these wishes 
unreasonable? Am I a vulgar and selfish dog 
because I cherish these harmless desires?” 

Blythman snuffed the forgotten candle. 

“ I see your excitement,” Hugh continued, 
*‘and I know what you are thinking. You are 
thinking that I want to rob the duke and drag 
him down to our own level, and I tell you that 
I have no such wish. Don’t imagine the present 
dukes are responsible for our condition. Some 
of them are as much to be pitied as we are. I 
understand that our local duke is not only a gen- 
tleman born, but also a gentleman in heart. We 
must go back to the Goths, and the middle ages, 
and the mad King Lears, giving the country 
away to their sons and daughters. The present 
dukes were born into it, and I wish to God they 
could be born out of it. Which of you has ever 
seen the duke? I have never set eyes on him. 
I should not know him if he was standing there. 
We see his hirelings, his bailiffs and comptrollers 
and rent-squeezers, with their high collars and 


MISS BLACK 


33 


gold chains and velvet coats, but the duke him- 
self we never see. Not an Oxley in all my fam- 
ily ever saw the duke. I would not rob the land- 
lords, but I would pay them off. Pay them 
justly — aye, pay them handsomely; don’t hag- 
gle with them about pounds, shillings, and pence, 
but get rid of them, and let the honest toiler have 
a chance to make the best and the most of his 
bit of land.” 

Hugh paused. In the lull of the storm Blyth- 
man rose in his pew, and in a thrilling voice, wav- 
ing the snuffers above his head, he exclaimed, 
”I thank God I have lived to see this day!” 
Then the people cried, ” Halleluiah ! ” And one 
old lady, the brightness of whose eyes was seen 
across the chapel, shouted, Praise the Lord!” 
And other voices said, “Aye, bless His name!” 
And the choir struck up the doxology, and the 
clarionet never sounded so religious. Heretofore 
the clarionet had been regarded as in a large de- 
gree a worldly instrument, but that stigma was 
now removed in one grand act of consecration. 

By a dramatic stroke too exquisite to have 
been designed, Hugh dropped out of sight, and 
slowly made his way back to Horsefield Farm. 


34 


TYNE FOLK 


When he got there, quieted by a roundabout 
walk, he said nothing to his father and mother, 
who were now much too old to go to chapel 
twice a day. Hugh took his bread and milk, 
then went his usual round through the cattle- 
houses, gave the old mare an affectionate tickle 
of the right ear, and finally ascended to his mod- 
est chamber, which somehow seemed to feel 
roomier and sweeter than before, and a subtle 
odor as of a rose stole through the tranquil air. 

There was no lack of excitement in and around 
the chapel. The chapel-keeper was found, key 
in hand, anxiously inquiring whether the roof had 
not fallen in. When she heard how Mr. Blyth- 
man had spoken, she courageously pledged her- 
self to a policy, saying, “Then Fll keep on.” 
Mrs. Jones, notwithstanding her Paisley shawl, 
was not a woman to inaugurate an independent 
and era-making policy, but when she saw how 
the upper ten were going (for even Horsefield 
Chapel had an upper ten) she never hesitated as 
to the course of duty, and never failed to cover 
with contempt “ the low-minded bodies who 
have no will of their own/’ This night, Sunday 
though it was, Tom Burnup, a Bylam pitman. 


MISS BLACK 


35 


thinking he could take liberties with the widow, 
observed, “ Surely they’ll gie ye a new Paisley 
after this.” The widow rounded on him with 
the merited rebuke, “ What’s good enough for 
me to wear is good enough for ye to look at.” 
Burnup, being no hand at retort, skulked away 
in conscious disgrace. 

To Miss Black, Mr. Blythman said the next 
day, '' We owe this to you and to the missionary 
supper, and we are glad in our very hearts that 
you have laid us under the obligation. Did you 
ever hear anything like that all the years you’ve 
lived at Horsefield?” 

Never, Mr. Blythman; but I’m afraid the 
Oxleys may be made to suffer for this if it should 
come to the duke’s ears.” 

And who’s to tell the duke. Miss Black?” 

Oh, you may be sure bad news will soon find 
a tale-bearer.” 

'' But for the life of me,” said Mr. Blythman, 
“ I cannot see the bad news. I thought the case 
was fairly put. You see, Hugh is not a robber. 
He wants everything done in the open, and done 
on the square. You couldn’t but see that.” 

All the Oxleys want that,” Miss Black an- 


36 


TYNE FOLK 


swered. “ I have heard my grandfather and my 
father speak of them with very high respect. As 
for Hugh, he is what we north-country folks call 
a swanky* fellow, and we have no occasion to be 
ashamed of him. I think he is a very noble- 
minded young man. But, eh, Mr. Blythman, it 
would be a thousand pities if he got his father 
and mother turned out of the old place.” 

‘‘ But how on earth. Miss Black, could that 
ever come to pass?” 

“ I am only thinking of what Widow Jones 
whispered to me.” 

What was that? You know how confiden- 
tial I am.” 

” There’s no need of confidence, Mr. Blyth- 
man. The widow got so frightened that she 
went out of the chapel for a breath of fresh air, 
and when she opened the chapel door she came 
plump against a man dressed in clothes not worn 
in Horsefield, and he asked her who the raving 
madman was, and when he went away she said 
she knew by the clack his boots made on the 
hard road that he came from a town and not 
from a farm.” 


* Stalwart, agile. 


MISS BLACK 


37 


** Now you mention it, I remember,” said 
Blythman ; ** yes, I remember. The fool of a 
woman did go out at the wrong place. Hugh 
was saying something about blood crying for 
vengeance.” 

That’s it,” said Miss Black. 

But the man should have heard all that Hugh 
said.” 

Exactly ; but people hear only parts of 
things.” 

” So they do,” continued Mr. Blythman ; “ but 
we have witnesses. You are one and I am one, 
and there are plenty of others. Now let us fix 
the thing in our minds, and if any fuss is made 
about it we can put the case exactly as it was. 
It is well to be ready for whatever may turn up. 
One thing is certain: I’ll share my last shilling 
with the Oxleys.” 

And something did turn up. 


THE DUKE 


Some weeks after this I met a boy from Blew- 
ton, a nephew of Mr. Blythman, certainly under 
thirteen years of age, who frankly volunteered to 
walk with me along the hillside if, as he said, I 
“didn’t mind.” It would take a chartered ac- 
countant or a professional statistician to give a 
correct statement of the dogs and uncles pos- ' 
sessed by that delightfully conceited child. I 
could not name the two dissimilar properties in 
one sentence, but as he passed from dog to 
uncle, and from uncle to dog, with distressing fa- 
miliarity, I feel that the responsibility must rest 
wholly with him. Where he saw nothing incon- 
gruous, why should I shrink from making note 
of his rattling talk ? “ That dog was a pug, and 

the cunningest old rascal you ever saw. He 
would sneak upstairs and snore all day in the 


THE DUKE 


3d 

middle of the eider-down quilt that lay on moth- 
er’s bed ; but, by George ! one day when he was 
prowling about the garden the fox-terrier and he 
got into a quarrel, and it was nuts, I can tell you, 
and my uncle said he never saw anything funnier 
out of a Sunday-school; and uncle is a rare old 
crony, and up to all sorts of dodges, but not a 
patch on Uncle Sam in Canada, who built him- 
self a wood hut on the edge of the wilderness, 
and wrote us a letter saying he was like a lost 
thing without a dog, and asking father to send 
him out a sovereign to buy one ; and father sent 
it, and Uncle Sam got two dogs with it, and had 
whelps, and wrote them a pedigree as long as 
my arm. 

“ There are three swells getting out of a trap 
at Oxley’s door, an old one and two young ones ; 
it cannot be a tea-party, because it is not much 
past twelve o’clock. 

“This is,” the boy continued in a moment or 
two, “ the rummiest old place I ever saw. My 
uncle’s two old dogs are not worth whistling for, 
and one of them has lost an eye in hunting moles, 
and my Uncle Blythman is so kind he would not 
have them shot on any account, though he is a 


40 


TYNE FOLK 


blacksmith. I think he is ridiculously kind. And 
in that hole of a chapel there’s not a boy to play 
with. They are all old-looking people that go 
there. There isn’t a jacket in the place less than 
seven years old, and not one blessed jacket that 
fits a boy within half a mile. But didn’t young 
Oxley let out on them about a month or six 
weeks since ! Miss Black was telling me all about 
it, and uncle slaps the table and laughs about it. 
I wish I had been here then. I like something 
to be going on, and something that has fiz in it. 
I believe uncle is going to get a dog ; but oh ! I 
forgot — Miss Black gave me a tea-party the 
other day. Four boys were there, and you never 
saw such chaw-bacons in your life ; and the 
chapel-keeper — that old gillyflower, I call her — 
brought her grandson, and his face was so bright 
with soaping I made a looking-glass of him. 
What a gut-hallion* he was! And not one of 
the boys ever heard of the game of hinchy-pinchy. 
And Miss Black is a jolly sort . . . hillo ! here’s 
Uncle Blythman and a dog.” 

I was really glad when the clapper was shut 
down, but my distress returned all the more 


* Voracious eater. 


THE DUKE 


41 


sharply upon me when Blythman said he would 
meet us at the gate of the next field but one, as 
he had a call to make. Then the young tongue 
went to its work with a hearty good will. Until 
that moment I was not aware how many ques- 
tions it was possible for one person to put to 
another. How many people are there in Horse- 
field? What do they do for a living? Are there 
many dogs about? Do you keep dogs? Why 
not? Don’t you like dogs? Why don’t you like 
dogs? If you did like a dog, which dog would 
you like? If you had a dog and didn’t like it, 
what would you do with it? Did you never 
keep a dog? Are there ever any thieves at 
Horsefield? You should get a sharp terrier. 
Would you like me to send you a fox-terrier 
from Blewton?” 

What sort of swells,” as the loquacious chat- 
terbox called them, got out at Oxley’s house 
may partly appear from the fact that the oldest 
of them, dressed very much after the manner of 
a superior, but not overpaid, clerk or steward, 
tapped gently on the door, and asked Mrs. Oxley 
if she would be good enough to let him have a 
glass of milk, say, for sixpence. Now Mrs. Oxley 


42 


TYNE FOLK 


was quite as silent as her husband, and, like him, 
she often did by expressive looking what Mrs. 
Poyser did by sarcastic talking. Mrs. Oxley 
looked at the visitor and shook her head. The 
visitor gently repeated his request, and Mrs. Ox- 
ley, who had been finishing the week’s washing, 
pointed him to a wooden chair, with a gesture 
which told him to sit down. There was a dread- 
ful want of hospitality about the chair itself, but 
still more about the position it occupied, for it 
was so near the door, and the door was open, 
that it was practically outside. Mrs. Oxley had 
a curious theory about doors, which was that as 
long as anybody was calling at the house the 
door should be kept ajar, either for easy escape, 
or as a palpable suggestion to the caller to cut 
the visit short. Hence the door was now ajar, 
and the visitor humbly sat between the open door 
and the watchful and keenly suspicious housewife. 
The visitor noticed that the tumbler of milk was 
handed to him on a tray covered with the snow- 
iest dimity, and he could not but feel that he was 
only rising to the occasion when he laid down a 
shilling as the price of the milk. But as with 
doors, so with prices, the farmer’s wife had a 


THE DUKE 


43 


distinct and immutable theory. Indeed, all Mrs. 
Oxley’s theories were immutable. She always 
felt convinced, in what she called her own 
mind,” that any man who could be so idiotic as 
to give a shilling for a glass of milk had no good 
designs upon the house, and was only trying by 
that shameful device to “ worm his way ” (Mrs. 
Oxley’s figures were all taken from the soil) into 
the confidence of the family. By offering that 
shilling, which Mrs, Oxley flicked back with her 
forefinger, the visitor covered himself not with 
suspicion only, but with disgrace little short of 
infamy. A very fine analysis of Mrs. Oxley’s 
feelings might have resulted in the discovery that 
she was deeply wounded by the thought that she 
was mean enough to take money for one poor 
glass of milk, though there might possibly be a 
coating of cream on the top of it. 

How long have you been here?” said the 
visitor between his sips of milk, thinking to be 
agreeable and in a way neighborly. 

But Mrs. Oxley only shook her head, and un- 
fortunately the English language does not permit 
me to say exactly how she shook it ; that is, it does 
not permit me to tell how many noes were 


44 


TYNE FOLK 


shaken out of it in rebuke of the visitor’s flippant 
and obtrusive curiosity. There was never any- 
thing frivolously social about Mrs. Oxley, least 
of all when some milk-buying, purse-proud way- 
sider was trying to impose upon her womanly 
kindness by using wealth as a temptation. How 
long this dumb-show would have gone on it is 
impossible to say, had not Hugh been heard 
humming a verse of the “ Lay of the Reedwater 
Minstrel,” and hurrying along to his one-o’clock 
dinner. 

''Hallo!” said he, in a surprised but not un- 
friendly tone. 

" He wanted a sup milk, and I gave it to him,” 
Mrs. Oxley explained to her swanky son, a 
worthy child of the hills. 

"That’s right,” said Hugh. " I feel as hungry 
as Tom Bulmen was when he said he could eat a 
beatment* o’ tetties.” 

" He wanted to gie me a shilling for the 
milk.” 

" Nonsense. It will be a pity for old England 
when she cannot give a fellow a glass o’ milk.” 

" I was asking the lady — your mother, I pre- 
* A quarter-peck. 


THE DUKE 


45 


sume — how long you have lived at the farm, but 
I am afraid she thought me too curious.” 

Oh, aye,” said Hugh, “ she keeps everything 
under lock and key, does the old lady ; she neither 
says gruff nor sty.” 

As he sat down to his smoking dinner, Hugh 
said to the visitor : 

” Draw up your chair and have a snack wi’ me. 
You see how we live — the shank end of a neck 
o’ mutton and lots o’ brown potatoes, and a quart 
o’ well-water.” 

'‘No, thank you,” said the visitor; "the milk 
is so excellent it has taken my appetite away. 
The land round here must be good.” 

" Excellent clay,” said Hugh, " and a brick 
of a landlord.” 

"The duke’s, I suppose?” 

" The duke be hanged,” said Hugh ; " not per- 
sonally, but figuratively.” 

" Poor old duke,” said the man, draining his 
glass of milk. 

" I never saw him,” said Hugh ; " none of our 
family ever saw him ; not a blessed soul for five 
mile round ever saw him ; so I say, not person- 
ally, but figuratively. You want to know how 


46 


TYNE FOLK 


long we have been here. Let me see. hatlier 
and grandfather and great-grandfather must go 
back to Edward VI. Certainly they go further 
back than the day before yesterday. Say, 
roundly, a hundred and ten years.” 

“Then they must have liked the farm.” 

“ Poor old devils,” said Hugh, “ they could not 
help themselves. I wonder they did not blow 
their heads off with a blunderbuss. Good job 
for me if they had.” 

“ You are going great lengths now,” said the 
visitor. “ May I light a very mild cigar? ” 

“ Light the roof if you like,” said Hugh. 

“ Thanks.” 

“ I wanted the blessed old duke,” Hugh con- 
tinued, “ to let us have a grass farm ; by the 
duke I mean those cold-blooded squeezers that 
gouge the blood out of the tenants; and the 
rascals were willing, but the price was beyond 
us.” 

“ What was it? ” 

“ The old dad was to give up his dissent and 
his chapel, and his politics and his soul ; and he 
said he would cut off his right hand first, and I 
said, * Dad, you are the sort o’ aristocracy I like 


THE DUKE 


47 


SO we settled down, and here we are. Have an- 
other glass o’ milk? ” 

No, thanks. You must be the young man 
I heard of who spoke in the chapel the other 
night?” 

“ The very man. Hugh Oxley.” 

” An acquaintance of mine was passing at the 
time, and heard you, and he says you made his 
hair stand on end.” 

The two men thought they were alone, and in 
a sense they were, but the silent Mrs. Oxley was 
^Hizzenin’ ” in the back kitchen, and mutely de- 
nouncing the oily-tongued wretch who was 
“ drivin’ ma bairn on to say wild things, and ne 
doot wanted to get him into prison.” 

'' Now, for my part,” continued the visitor, I 
cannot think the dukes — ” 

Very good,” said Hugh; “come and live 
here yourself ; come and welcome.” 

“No; that would not be convenient.” 

“ It would be uncommonly convenient for me,” 
said Hugh. 

After a moment : “ I wonder if the duke could 
be got to alter the conditions on which he is will- 
ing to let you have the grass farm.” 


48 


TYNE FOLK 


And how am I to get at the duke?” said 
Hugh. 

“There’s the difficulty. I admit it is not 
easy.” 

“ Impossible,” Hugh tersely commented. 

“Well now,” said the visitor, removing the 
white ash from his cigar, “ an idea strikes me. I 
know you will smile. My wonder is whether I 
could not in some way get you the ear of the 
duke.” 

“ Get me his heart,” said Hugh. 

“Well, he would be pleased to hear that you 
give a duke credit for having a heart. You must 
prime me a little. I suppose your father would 
not so far change his mind as simply to hold his 
tongue? ” 

“Never!” said Hugh. “His tongue goes 
where his heart goes.” 

“That’s clear. Your father is, I understand, 
far on in life. Now about yourself. Could you 
manage to control your own tongue?” 

“ Yes, I could do that,” said Hugh; “ but only 
by taking a glass o’ poison.” 

“ Then I understand that on the Oxley side 
there would be no concession?” 


THE DUKE 


49 


“Hallo! ” said Hugh, as the youths drove the 
trap to the front door, “ whose turnout is that? ” 
Hugh had entered by the back door. 

“ It is mine,” said the visitor, “ and these are 
two of my sons.” 

“Bring them in,” said Hugh; “and fetch 
some more milk, mother.” 

“ We are in too great a hurry, Mr. Oxley. I 
want you to do me a favor. I cannot do better 
than go deeper into your debt. I have an im- 
portant paper to sign, and I want you to be a 
witness to my signature.” 

“ ril go,” said Hugh; “ anything’s better than 
a weshing-day — 

‘ Of a’ the plagues a poor man meets 
Alang life’s weary way, 

There’s nyen amang them a’ that beats 
A rainy weshing-day ; ’ 

and when we come back mother’ll have a singin’ 
hinny ready.” 

“ Nice boys these,” said Hugh, as he mounted 
the trap; “ don’t bring them up as farmers.” 

About a mile from the farm the trap was 
stopped by its owner and driver. “ Mr. Oxley,” 
said he, “ don’t let me alarm you. I have been 


60 


TYNE FOLK 


thinking over that matter of the grass farm. You 
mean Westfield. The duke will let you have it.” 

‘‘Never!” said Hugh. 

“This day,” said his companion. 

“Rubbish,” Hugh replied — “rubbish and 
nonsense.” 

“ This will be the duke’s reasoning : the Ox- 
leys have been on the land more than a hundred 
years; they have never been behind with their 
rent ; whatever their principles are, those princi- 
ples are consistent with honor, industry, virtue, 
and heroism ; reward them handsomely, and give 
that harum-scarum son of theirs a chance in life ; 
he’s an honest, outspoken, hot-blooded fellow; 
take the millstone from his neck — ” 

“Ho!” cried Hugh, “when a duke talks like 
that, I will know that Jesus has got hold o’ him. 
Ever hear o’ Jesus?” 

There was a moment of silence. Then : 

“ I don’t see how the duke could very well 
reason otherwise — ” 

“ Then you know precious little about dukes,” 
Hugh interrupted. 

“ I have faith, Mr. Oxley, that this is possible.” 

“But I have none,” said Hugh, “and you 


THE DUKE 


51 


wouldn’t have much yourself if you could see 
those life-squeezers down at Blewton who collect 
the rents and lunch off lamb cutlets, while the 
old chaw-bacons hang about with their poor yel- 
low wash-leather purses, and their Sunday clothes 
on. Those Sunday clothes always knock me 
over,” said Hugh ; good God, it is a sad 
sight ! ” 

In a few minutes more both the men got down 
to remove a stone which a horse caught in his foot. 
This done, the driver looked round and said : 

“ A lovely country, and no mistake. People 
ought, after all, to be tolerably happy in a green 
paradise like this — ” 

“ Green paradise!” said Hugh, with bitter em- 
phasis. 

Well,” said the stranger, “ it is that, duke or 
no duke, rent or no rent ; there’s the view, and I 
call it lovely.” 

Nothing is lovely when the heart is not con- 
tent,” said Hugh. “ But come, governor, if we 
fool away our time like this you will never get 
that paper signed, and Til not get the field 
plowed before dusk.” 

” True. But I don’t think we are fooling away 


52 


TYNE FOLK 


the time. If this talk ends in your getting the 
grass farm — ” 

Ha ! ha ! ” Hugh laughed. Tell a buzzom * 
that.” 

Stranger things have happened, my young 
man.” 

“ Not in my life.” 

“ The terms I shall propose,” said the stranger, 
“ are these : Westfield for Oxley ; Westfield in 
recognition of his long tenancy and his blameless 
character ; Westfield for his family as long as they 
care to stay there; and Westfield rent-free.” 

After a pause : 

“ Mr. Oxley, look at me, and be plain with 
me; do I look like an honest man?” 

” Yes.” 

“ And so I am.” 

“ I think I have seen your portrait somewhere,” 
said Hugh. 

“ Yes. It is in the rent-office at Blewton.” 

“That’s it,” Hugh hotly exclaimed; “you 
thief! you’ve come to snare me like a rabbit, 
have you ? ” 

“No.” 


A simpleton. 


THE DUKE 


53 


“ Then explain yourself ; for you and I have 
no business to hobnob.” 

We may have. Oxley, I have heard of you, 
and your family, and your speeches, and your 
grievances, and your natural sense of justice, and 
I want to help you. I am the duke.” 

When Hugh got home after plowing, his 
mother said, “ Bairn, thou’s as white as a wully- 
ment.” When Hugh, at the close of the day, 
told all the ” glad tidings of great joy,” his 
mother would not believe a word of the new gos- 
pel. She was sure they were all going to be 
murdered in their beds. She was sure Providence 
would never allow her to treat a real duke in that 
way, and she felt in her bones that something 
was going to blow up or sink in — or something. 
It is just so that some natures receive the best 
mercies of Heaven. It was otherwise with Nathan. 
He always came upon the kingdom of heaven by a 
road unknown to his unimaginative wife. Nathan 
was unconsciously superstitious, no doubt, and 
much given to the reading of the cipher words he 
saw on every mossy wall, and saw also in every 
vernal bud, but his parables and their translations 


54 


TYNE FOLK 


he never put into words that man could hear. 
They all went to the brightening of his eyes, the 
softening of his voice, and the eloquent lining of 
his venerable face. He listened silently to Hugh, 
and then pressed his hand. He then fell into a 
slight stupor, in which he distinctly uttered the 
word topcoat.” Then he revived, and asked to 
hear the story all over again. It seemed as if life’s 
last twilight were creeping over God’s faint pilgrim, 
and the sandals were being loosed from his weary 
feet by invisible hands. At a time like this,” said 
he, ** your mother should have a spoonfu’ of Miss 
Black’s nice ginger- wine ; it would be comforting 
for her at this time. Not that I ever indulged in 
such things; farmers ha’ something else to do nor 
bib and guzzle. . . . Hugh, ma bairn, ma only 
son, come nearer — is it all true ? The grass . . . 

0 Hugh . . . it is so mixed up ... I am happy ; 

1 feel as if it was the Sabba’ day.” 

The night gathered fast, and in the morning 
” he was not, for God took him.” 

Night for the old man; morning for his son. 
Let us watch how the day grows. 


JOHN MORRA 


In the neighborhood of Horsefield there was a 
local preacher universally known as John Morra. 
Only a Tyneside man, whose whole ancestry lived 
and died on the banks of the river, can properly 
pronounce the double r in that popular name. 
The good man’s proper name was Murray, but 
it is not in our wayward blood to pronounce any 
name correctly if by any possibility it can be pro- 
nounced incorrectly. We have no inborn respect 
for such names as Smith and Jones, since their 
bald and destitute simplicity affords no scope for 
distortion. But we had our compensations even 
in such cases, for we were fertile in the creation 
of nicknames and of characteristic designations. 
Murray, as a name, lent itself immediately to our 
use, and came out in the mutilated form of Morra, 

the double r being pronounced with a bur that 
55 


56 


TYNE FOLK 


threatened to crush out the tonsils, the uvula, 
and the soft palate. The throat of the Tyne is a 
well-battered anvil. John Morra, a hard-work- 
ing farmer, was the most popular local preacher 
for miles round Horsefield, and the very darling of 
Hugh Oxley’s heart. John was so true to his 
native soil that nothing could tempt him to drop 
the crude vernacular. Nyen o’ yer fein toke 
for me,” John would say; and not even the pul- 
pit could induce him to '' speak it trippingly on 
the tongue” when he tackled the famed North- 
umbrian r. In the pulpit, in the byre, in the 
harvest- field, it was all the same to John; the 
more barbarous the lingo the better. John’s ser- 
mons could not be regarded as literary composi- 
tions, though they had a rich classical flavor of 
their own. He was not deterred by the fact that 
some dainty folks were shocked by hearing such 
language in the pulpit; on the contrary, if he 
knew that such people were in the chapel he gave 
them “ rround the rrugged rrocks the rragged 
rrascals rran ” with redoubled emphasis ; for John 
was human even in “ the sacred desk,” and John 
knew how to show a a prroperr rresentment.” 
Preaching, as was his custom, in his own roomy 
kitchen, an incident occurred which John turned 


JOHN MORRA 


57 


into a pulpit illustration which I am able to give 
without the change of a word. It should be first 
known, however, that John always delicately re- 
ferred to his own preaching as a process known as 
“ gannin on.” * He was preaching in the principal 
chapel in his district on the subject of doing 
works of mercy and necessity on the Sabbath day, 
and he said : 

As ah was gannin on i’ wor kitchen th’ 
tuther Sunda’ efterneean there was a knock cam’ 
ti’ th’ dooer, and a man leeaked in. It was 
Simpson o’ Byfield Ho’, f wait ye o’ ken th’ 
body, and he said t’ me, ‘ Morra, your whey f — 
your whey’s doon i’ th’ born, and if ye dinna gan 
and git her oot she’ll be drooned.’ Ah, but it 
wasn’t to bid me shut up th’ beuek noo, so ah 
ran down and pulled up ma troosers and jumped 
inta th’ wetter and gat her oot, and then ah cam’ 
back and finished ; will ony on ye say there was 
out wrang i’ that noo? ” 

I sent this as part of an article to a London 
editor, who politely remarked that many of his 
readers would probably regard it as some kind of 
pagan profanity, and I may quietly observe that 


* Going on. 
t Young heifer. 


t Hall. 

$ Stream. 


58 


TYNE FOLK 


I could not wholly censure the bit body, for the 
language certainly has ‘"a tarrible soond” about it, 
though it requires a Tyneside man properly to pro- 
nounce the word “tarrible.” Mr. Co wen could 
pronounce it grandly, but it takes John Morra his 
own verra sel’ to give it all its weight and unction. 
John was once walking in the market- town near- 
est his farmstead when I overheard him giving 
directions to a south-country inquirer. The 
question, put in a sharp-cut southern tone, was. 

Can you direct me to Collingford Street?” and 
the balmy reply, precisely adapted to a white- 
faced invalid, was : 

“ Gan doon t’ th’ reet and torn th’ corner, and 
ye’ll coom tiv a barrial shop wi’ coffings i’ th’ 
winda ; and th’ pollus,* or ony bit bairn ye meet, 
’ll tell ye where ye are if ye ax them.” 

The south-country inquirer turned instinctively 
to me for protection, and I translated the awful 
jargon into current English, and sent him on his 
way rejoicing. 

John then said to me, They’re tarrible igno- 
rant folk i’ th’ sooth ; yen wonders they dar stor 
oot by theirsel’s, poor bodies; d’ye know th’ 


Police. 


JOHN MORRA 


59 


dotherin’ creatur’ leuked as if he was rayther 
freetened o’ me, though I telled him as plain as 
plain could be.” 

“Well, John, and what kind of a traveling 
preacher have you ? ” 

“ Oh, th’ verra poorest we ivver had ; he was 
at wor place last Sunda’, and ye nivver seed sic 
a sect as we had. Ah didn’t ken what th’ thing 
was meanderin’ aboot and baffling aboot like a 
daft body as wanted somethin’ and darrant ax 
for’t; so ah nudged Tommy Foster o’ Korbrig, 
and Tommy jumped up, and ah cried * Halleluiah,’ 
and Tommy said, "Let’s sing a bit,’ and he ga’ oot 
" There is a fountain filled with blood,’ and off we 
went, and we had th’ last twee lines ower and 
ower ageen ite times. Man, it was a revival, and 
the Sperrit was amang us.” 

"" And what became of the traveling preacher ? ” 

"" Eh, poor body, he just gethered up th’ few 
bits o’ paper he coled his sarmon, and doon he 
went inta a back pew, and Tommy and me 
preached th’ gospel. Man, ye cannot have a 
sarmon scratted on bits o’ paper.” 

""That’s what they call intellectual preaching, 
John.” 


60 


TYNE FOLK 


'' Ah want nyen on’t ; ah like a fat croudy * 
het off the pot; there’s some ’bidin’ o’ that — 
somethin’ to grou on.” 

''But isn’t it a fine thing, John, to come from 
a college? ” 

" Mebby, but for verra weak stomachs ; they 
should all keep doon i’ th’ sooth, and not come 
north wi’ their blish-blash ; they always seem to 
be wokin’ ower a coggly plank, and to be just 
gannin to tummel off. We dinna want ony o’ 
their paper packets here.” 

As a commentator on the Bible, John had his 
own way of-striking a light. Reading the pas- 
sage, "Neither do I condemn thee: go, and sin 
no more,” John looked up, took off his spectacles, 
and said to his hearers, " Noo, wasn’t that canny 
on Him, hinnies?” Reading "Suffer little chil- 
dren to come unto Me,” John said, "He liked the 
bits o’ bairns to be playin’ aboot Him. Ah think, 
ye know, the Pharisees had nee families, or they 
nivver could ha’ been sic goniels aboot weshin’ 
their hands and dressin’ se fine.” 

On one occasion John was preaching in a place 
totally unknown to him. He took for his text 


Rough oatmeal. 


JOHN MORRA 


61 


the words, “ Ye are of your father the devil,” and 
he introduced his discourse in the conciliatory 
terms, ”Noo, hinnies, ah dinna ken ony o’ ye, 
but ah ken all yer fathers, for ye are of your 
father the divil.” The frankness and delicate 
courtesy of this assurance could hardly fail to 
win the admiration and affection of an open- 
minded and self-analyzing congregation. 

John was not used to be ill, but once he had 
what he called ” a touch o’ lumbaga,” and this is 
the account he gave me of it: “Ah had a touch 
o’ lumbaga, or somethin’ o’ that sort, so ah went 
doon to Westfield for th’ week end, just t’ get a 
wesh i’ sote * wetter, and t’ hev a het bath, t’ see 
what that would do for me, and hoot, man, by 
Monda’ morn ah was as kittle and fresh as ah 
ivver was i’ ma life. But, eh, man, what a preacher 
I heard there! Noo that was preachin’! Ah 
stopped wi’ Hugh Oxley, and he teuk me to th’ 
field where th’ grand ode fella preaches. He 
fishes o’ week-days, but God nivver meant that 
man t’ dee out but preach.” 

John had his own way of preaching, in which 
he stood absolutely alone. John’s was personal 


♦ Salt. 


62 


TYNE FOLK 


preaching. He used to rest his left arm on the 
pulpit Bible, and wag the forefinger of his right 
hand as he picked out one after another in the 
congregation for special admonition or comfort. 
That was the moment of John’s pulpit glory. 
Then in very deed John was a terror to evil-doers 
and a praise to them that do well. 

Noo, Tommy Carr, what’s brout ye here t’ 
neet? Ye’re only here becose ye want t’ seeave 
candle-leet at heaam. Ah ken yer beggarly 
ways. Tommy, ye’re on yer way t’ th’ divil. 
All misers are his prizes. Tommy, how monny 
pennies ha’ ye given to th’ poor this week? 
How monny little bairns ha’ ye made happy? 
Dinna try to shuffle m’ off wi’ some lee or an- 
other. Tommy, yer rest this verra neet will be 
sair brocken if ye divvant put a shillin’ on th’ 
plate. Mr. Bell, teake th’ plate tiv him this verra 
minute, for death comes sudden sometimes. 
Tommy, if ye put five shillin’ on th’ plate it 
wunna beggar ye, and it’ll do good to the chepple. ’ ’ 
‘"Ah’s glad to see Betty Stoka oot th’ neet, 
for a drizzlin’ dorty neet it is, and Betty’s not as 
young as she was forty year sin’. But ye’re quite 
reet, Betty, to coom oot, for ye’ve had a vast o’ 


JOHN MORRA 


63 


trouble, and this is th’ place where Jesus com- 
forts His people and makes them warm wi’ His 
own love. We all knew yer husband, Betty, 
and what a long affliction he had, but neebody 
ivver heerd a grumelin’ word oot o’ yer mooth. 
Mr. Bell, I see Tommy Carr pat haf a croon on 
th’ plate ; noo give it to Betty, for she’s poor and 
she needs th’ money ; and. Tommy Carr, ye’ll be 
blist for this — and see if ma words divvant come 
true. Noo, hinnies, let’s sing a verse, and then 
ah’ll gan on ageean.” 

It will be seen that John’s was not a scholastic 
style of composition, yet I still hold to it that 
John’s style had a classic distinctiveness which 
his next-door neighbors never failed to appreci- 
ate. It would not do for a traveling preacher” 
to adopt this strain of eloquence unless he was a 
man of private means ; in some cases he is largely 
dependent for a living on grammar and unintel- 
ligibleness, and must smile with a tolerating su- 
periority upon such men as John Morra. 

Ah hardly know how to begin ageean, for 
Geordie Hopper hes gien me sic a scunner ah 
hardly know ma reet hand fra ma left. Geordie, 
ah mun say ah was sorprysed to hear ye singin’ like 


64 


TYNE FOLK 


a crowin’ cock aboot th' dyin’ thief ; and ye ken 
as weel as ah can tell ye that ye were twice 
drunk last week, and ah met ye i’ th’ lonning 
and ye had nee hat on, and yen o’ yer bits o’ 
bairns was leadin’ ye to yer hoose, and noo yer 
singin’ aboot th’ dyin’ thief as if ye had nivver 
seen a drop. Hoo dar ye, man?” 

Then, after a pause : 

Coom up t’ th’ penitent form, Geordie, and 
we’ll pray for thee.” 

Geordie did not stir. 

“ Howay noo, ah tell thee, and it’ll be th’ hap- 
piest neet of thy life.” 

Geordie slunk up toward the little pulpit. 

Noo gan doon on thy knees, Geordie, and 
say after me, ' O Lord, ha’ mercy on me, for ah’m 
a baddun, and ah dinna dissarve ony marcy.’ 
Noo, hinnies, we’ll sing: 

* While th’ lamp holds out to born, 

Th’ vilest sinner may retorn ; ’ 

and Geordie’ll keep on his knees till he gets th’ 
blessin’ of pardon and peace. Geordie, pray 
hard for thysel’, and ha’ faith, and nivver meind 
aboot th’ dorty rags o’ self-righteousness: th’ 
vilest sinner may retorn.” 


JOHN MORRA 


65 


Does this make you smile irreverently ? Then 
I have missed the music and the pathos of Mur- 
ray’s caressing tone, and have not made you see 
the tear that moistened and enlarged his elo- 
quent blue eyes. Of course some people came 
to hear John anticipating partly to mock and 
partly to laugh. If John caught any inkling of 
this, woe betide the flippant intruders. John 
could generally pick them out by their finery or by 
some facial expression ; then the fire burned and 
he spake with his tongue. At one place where 
John preached there was a large family of giddy 
girls, daughters of a prosperous brewer, who took 
young men to make game of John’s Northum- 
brian. During the service they would giggle 
and exchange signs, until John’s patience gave 
way. 

“ Ah see ye,” John exclaimed, the aforesaid 
eloquent eyes ablaze with anger — ah see ye, 
and ah’s not freetened o’ ye, and all th’ beer- 
brooars i’ th’ coonty couldn’t freeten me. Ye 
owe yer fein clo’s to other people’s empty 
wardrobes; ye git rich by makin’ other people 
poor. Gan roond th’ countryside where yer 
poison is sold as ' fein old mild ale,’ and see th’ 


66 


TYNE FOLK 


havoc yer poison is workin’. It steals th’ 
workin’-man’s wages; it bricks th’ poor house- 
wife’s heart ; it starves th’ shiv’rin’ bits o’ bairns, 
and it bricks up families ’t might be happy ; and 
then ye boudikite lasses forget what is due to 
decency and to th’ hoose o’ God, and come here 
and mak’ fools o’ yersel’s. O generation o’ 
vipers, how can ye escape th’ damnation o’ hell? ” 

John was not the man to hold his tongue when 
he thought injustice was being done, as he clearly 
showed when the '‘sorkit” meeting wanted, as John 
perhaps mistakenly thought, to starve out one of 
the ministers who held unpopular notions regard- 
ing that ever interesting question, the govern- 
ment of Ireland. John himself was far enough 
from accepting the minister’s view, but he was of 
too Christian a temper to starve a man into the 
adoption of orthodox politics. 

'' Ye’re just th’ scrubbiest bits o’ tetties ah ivver 
saw. Ah wadn’t gie a penny a beatment for ye. 
And ye’re th’ bodies that kicks up sic a dust 
aboot boycottin’ i’ Ireland, and aboot coartion in 
what ye cole th’ Imerald Isle, and balderdash o* 
that sort. And ye cole yersel’s Teine * bairns, and* 


JOHN MORRA 


67 


noo ye want t’ bring shem on th’ verra river. 
Wey, hinnies, for ah still love ye, though ye 
are th’ pig-heidedest goniels ah ivver seed. 
Th' Neil* is nout t’ th’ Teine, and would nivver 
’a’ been heerd o’ but for th’ bit babby they 
trusted tid.f What’s th’ minister t’ think o’ 
th’ Teine? Ah want him t’ be prood on’t. I 
divvant care th’ scart iv a nail for his polytics, 
but he hes as much reet t’ them as he hes t’ his 
umbrella. Noo, hinnies, if ye’re gannin t’ touch 
this man’s salary, ah advise ye t’ mak’ it 
double.” 

This was said in the class-meeting of which 
John was the leader, and, having said it, he went 
on with the business of the class in the usual 
way : 

“ Noo, Sister Lyon, hinny, hoo’s th’ Lord been 
treatin’ ye?” And Sister Lyon dropped her 
head, and from the unutterable recesses of her 
feathery bonnet made her usual reply in her 
usual undertone: 

” I desire to bless God that since I last met in 
class, though I’ve had many troubles and dis- 
couragements by the way, I have been enabled 


Mile. 


t To it. 


68 


TYNE FOLK 


to put my faith where I ought to put it; and 
though I’m a poor and needy creature I believe 
I’m bound for the kingdom, and I humbly de- 
sire an interest in all your prayers.” 

“ Bless th’ Lord, Sister Lyon, and keep up yer 
heart. I see ye are a good deal back i’ yer penny 
a week, but if ye’ll pay up t’-neet we’ll pray for 
ye. It’s nee use tellin’ me ye cannot afford it; 
that’s just nonsense, or ye hae ne bizness to be 
wearin’ sic an expensive bonnet; that bonnet 
must ha’ cost ye thorteen shillin’ or main Ah’ll 
put ye doon for five shillin’ to th’ preacher’s 
fund.” 

When John died, devout men carried him to 
his burial and made great lamentation over him. 
No bishop had such influence as John. His spirit 
was so well understood that he offended nobody 
even by his most searching and disciplinary 
speech. He was trusted in action and waited for 
in counsel, and when John hesitated no man in 
all his circle was prepared to go forward. Such 
men are in very deed the salt of the earth, and 
the strength of the proudest crown. 


DISCRIMINATING GRACE 


John Morra represented only one side of our 
religious life, and that a side which drew upon 
itself the bitter contempt of the Calvinistic host. 
It was the lofty distinction of the main men in 
our chapel that they were familiar with the de- 
crees and counsels of eternity ; and this knowledge, 
bordering on the sanctity of special confidence, 
was in no degree dependent upon character, either 
as a solid quantity or as a daily evolution. To 
the infinite disgrace of the old Independent 
chapel, a strong leaven of Arminianism had been 
working in the younger minds, ending in an ex- 
asperating but uncontrollable desire to elect a 
minister who would preach the revolting doctrine 
of free will and the universal love of God. The 
elder men held hard by the comforting doctrine 
that the potter had such power over the wet and 
plastic clay that he had a right to make as many 


70 


TYNE FOLK 


vessels as he pleased, for the express purpose of 
breaking them to pieces, and the collateral right 
of making them pie-dishes and crushing them to 
powder because they were not wine-glasses. 
This potter was an awful character in our neigh- 
borhood, clothed with awful functions, and daily 
inflicting the most irrational and iniquitous penal- 
ties. The young folk wanted to get rid of him, 
and to put in his place the loving God who calls 
all men His children. The office-bearers were dead 
against them, and consequently bestowed upon 
theirvain-mindedness the most withering epithets. 
Things were going unhappily in our rustic Zion, 
situated at the back tan-yard, and within conscious 
distance of a series of model pigstys. Why did 
not the people build in a more attractive locality ? 
You can only ask so absurd a question because 
you are ignorant of the fact that some of them 
had been baptized there more than sixty years 
ago. Such questions betray lack of sentiment. 

With reference to the Calvinistic use of the 
figure of '' the potter ” in Romans ix., I have, 
with infinite reluctance, to make an allusion of a 
most painful nature. I wish the event had oc- 
curred on any river but the Tyne. Samuel Daw- 


DISCRIMINATING GRACE 


71 


son was without exception the quietest member 
of the Independent church. Very seldom was 
Sammy known to speak above a whisper. No 
doubt Sammy had his feelings like other people, 
but he had cultivated the power of self-suppres- 
sion to an amazing degree. Sammy was known 
to be bitter against the popular notion of Calvin- 
ism, and to be correspondingly liberal in his con- 
ception of the boundless extent of the love of 
God. On this subject he was as emphatic as any 
low- voiced man could possibly be. When, there- 
fore, he heard of the malevolent use which was 
being made of the potter, the fashion of his tran- 
quil countenance was changed, and in a whisper 
which chilled the marrow even of the Arminian 
members Sammy exclaimed, “ Damn the pot- 
ter! ” No “ potter ” could be allowed to dim his 
conception of the sky -wide love of God. Sammy 
spoke rashly, no doubt; but he meant to speak 
the very truth of his heart. Richy Hymers, 
speaking from other than a theological point, said 
he would go ten to one on Sammy. 

On the other hand, Lambert, the dogger, took 
the attitude of a higher critic, and gave it as his 
opinion, as a student of Tom Paine, that there 


72 


TYNE FOLK 


were many things in the Bible that were fabulous, 
and that if he were really put to it he would not 
conceal the fact that he did not believe it was 
/diistorically true that the cock went out and 
crowed bitterly. When people asked Lambert 
where that passage was to be found, he accused 
them of ignorance, and referred them to the Bible 
which they professed to regard as inspired. 

What is Arminianism ? ” a timid subscriber 
inquired of the senior deacon, who was the lead- 
ing local blacksmith. 

Eh, hinny, ye may weel ax, and ah do hope 
ye’ll not vote for this bletherin’ body they’re 
thinkin’ aboot. It’s just the most shockin’ blas- 
phemy ye ivver heerd on. It declares without a 
blush, ah may say it declares wi’ pride, that Jesus 
Christ cares as much for yen body as for another. 
Sic a doctrine makes ma verra hair stan’ on end ” 
(the blacksmith was as bald as his anvil), becose 
it dis away wi’ sovereignty, and wi’ personal 
election, and wi’ discriminatin’ grace.” 

“ Is that possible? ” 

” Yis, that’s possible ; and that’s what the old 
Independent chepple is cummin’ tee just as fast 
as it can; and we had a pew there fifty year. 


DISCRIMINATING GRACE 


73 


and ole the bairns christened there,” and then the 
blacksmith pulled the bellows with his left hand and 
stirred the fire with his right. “ Where,” he plain- 
tively repeated, “is discriminatin’ grace?” 

“ Do you think the young minister really be- 
lieves Arminianism ? ” 

“ Bairn, he’s full on’t, and ah may say,” bend- 
ing a horseshoe very neatly, “ he’s prood on’t. 
He kens ne mair aboot the coonsels and de- 
crees of etarnity than this horseshoe kens.” 

“ Dear me!” 

“ Aye, ye may weel say dear me ! It’s just 
thro’n’ parls afore swine, or givin’ the children’s 
bread t’ dogs.” 

“They say he’s a very nice young man, Mr. 
Rogers.” 

To which Mr. Rogers answered : “ And what 
hez that to de wud? Ne doot the divil was a 
nice young man yence. He’s a bit weaver body 
oot o’ Scotland is this nice young man o’ yers, 
and div ye ken what his maister’s getten ? ” 

“His maister?” 

“ Aye, a whipper-snapper chep they cole Mor- 
ison ; but, my word, he’s catcht it, and sarve him 
reet.” 


74 


TYhIE FOLK 


How?” 

“Why, he belanged the Presbyterians, and 
when he denied the doctrin’ of discriminatin’ grace 
and special privilege they cam’ doon on him like 
a regiment o’ soldiers.” 

“ Did they? ” 

“ Aye, that they did, and they were reet, and 
I recommend them.” 

“What did they do, Mr. Rogers?” 

“ What did they do ? Ye may weel ax. They 
did what he wunna forget if he leeves as lang 
as Methuselah. They chuckt him out neck and 
crop, and they made a law that the Presbyterians 
were not to receive him into their chorches or 
hooses, or give him bite or sup ; they were to 
banish him inta the wilderness like a scapegoat ; 
and noo his followers are cummin’ t’ this seid o’ 
the border and creepin’ inta respectable chorches 
like wor’s. Ah say it is enough to make the 
deid torn i’ their shroods.” 

Tommy Gibson, the amateur bone-setter, spake 
to the same effect. Tommy had a right to speak, 
because he combined the abstinence of a vegeta- 
rian with the self-indulgence of an inveterate 
smoker. 


DISCRIMINATING GRACE 


75 


“The goniels,” said Tommy, “are wolves i’ 
sheep’s clothin’. They’re just offerin’ the gospel 
t’ onybody ’at’ll stoop doon and pick’t oot o’ the 
dort. They want t’ meak oot that Jesus cam’ 
doon t’ orth as a kind o’ speckilation, withoot a 
scrap o’ guaranty that He wad get a single sowl 
for His pains. Noo what we say is that God 
promised Him a sarten number, it meit be five 
hundred or fifty thoosand ; nebody kens what the 
number was, but, at ony rate. He was sarten t’ git 
whativer was promised, and He meit mebby git 
a few mair ouT and above, but He knew from all 
etarnity that He wadn’t be empty-handed.’’ 

“ But doesn’t it say. Tommy, ‘ whosoever will ’ ? ’’ 
“ Sartenly, but divn’t ye see that’s the verra 
thing we believe, and the verra thing this croulin’* 
body disn’t believe? Ye couldn’t ha’ gien me a 
better text. Who makes the man will? The 
will’s the verra thing ’t needs puttin’ reet. And 
it can only be put reet by God, and God only 
puts the will reet when from all etarnity He has 
elected and predestinated the man to be saved.’’ 

“ Doesn’t it say. Tommy, ' whosoever thirst- 
eth’?” 


Crawling. 


76 


TYNE FOLK 


” Sartenly, but who makes them thirst? One 
man thirsts and another man disn’t thirst; hoo 
d’ye account for the difference ? It’s plain eneuf 
to us. It’s election; it’s sovereignty; it’s the 
grace o’ God. Why, this Morisonian body wad 
tell Richy Hymers hissel’, the drucken sot, that 
he may be saved, just as much as the man who 
was elected from all etarnity.” 

Richy Hymers was a frightful example and an 
appalling warning for miles round, and was even 
publicly named as such from many a village 
pulpit. Mothers used to frighten ^fayward boys 
by significantly naming Richy, and some of the 
older Calvinists did not hesitate to regard Richy 
as specially ordained to show men how far Satan 
could advance in the direction of personal incar- 
nation. The very skin of Richy’s face was drunk. 
He actually seemed to be more drunk than ever 
when he was sober. When hard-working and 
sleep-needing men were in bed they would, at an 
hour far into the night, hear a staggering foot- 
step on the village pavement, and drowsily re- 
mark, There’s Richy, poor man.” That any 
kind of gospel should be offered to Richy Hymers 
was enough to discredit the sovereignty of God 


DISCRIMINATING GRACE 


77 


in the estimation of such men as Nickle Fairbank, 
who kept the principal shoe-shop in the town. On 
the whole subject of sovereignty Nickle was ram- 
pant, for he had so received the doctrine as to 
enable him to break all the commandments and 
yet to set himself up as a miracle and a monu- 
ment (Nickle was fond of alliteration) of redeem- 
ing grace. It was known that Nickle had six 
illegitimate children, but it was often scandalously 
forgotten, as an offset to this, that Nickle would 
never ride on a Sunday and never support the 
popish practice of going to any religious service 
on a Good Friday. It was Nickle who was bit- 
terly opposed to the ordination of the young 
Morisonian, and who had made it known among 
the Calvinistic party that he would have a bag of 
flour ready when the ordaining ministers were at 
work, and he would dust their jackets for them.” 
Who could expect that such a man would for a 
moment tolerate the hideous doctrine that a man 
like Richy Hymers could ever become attached 
to a Christian church? Tommy Cowson agreed 
with Nickle, and regarded him as an instrument 
specially raised up by Providence to defend the 
orthodoxy which was being wounded in the house 


78 


TYNE FOLK 


of its friends. Tommy kept a corner alehouse, 
and it is not to be wondered at that he should 
take an unfriendly view of men like Richy 
Hymers, seeing that his license was limited to 
drinks that could not be drunk on the premises, 
whereas Richy required not only drink, but 
premises on which to consume it. 

The young Morisonian had great ideas about 
the love of God. His warm young heart over- 
flowed with his glorious theme. He said the 
cross was set up for the whole world, and that 
wherever there was a man there was a possible 
saint. His style was vehemently persuasive ; he 
besought his hearers, as if on bended knees, to be 
reconciled unto God ; he implored them, by the 
grace of salvation and by the fire of impending 
punishment, to flee from the wrath to come, and 
he so realized the unseen and spiritual world as 
to impress imaginations which had never accepted 
the severity of logic. The earnest young preacher 
made every service a great occasion, and wisely 
looked upon his little audience as representing 
everything great in human nature and in human 
destiny. To his glowing and yearning love one 
soul was a congregation ; to save that soul was 


DISCRIMINATING GRACE 


79 


honor enough for the foremost angel in heaven. 
Such was his inspired and inspiring conception of 
his ministry. What wonder, then, that we found 
him night after night preaching at street corners, 
and day after day conducting dinner-hour ser- 
vices wherever gangs of men were employed? 
All the people felt that a servant of God was in 
their midst, and that the days of indifference 
were ended. This had no effect upon the stub- 
bornness of Calvinism. No good thing could 
come from Arminian sources. That was one of 
the fixed decrees. He hath a devil and is mad ; 
why hear ye him?” is an old inquiry hardly 
modified as applied to the young revivalist. Why, 
who could set limits to his inexperience and au- 
dacity ? He had even addressed himself to Richy 
Hymers ! This was at first discredited as an im- 
possibility, and even at last was regarded as a 
vagary which should be treated with pity. 

'' But ah ken it’s true,” said Tommy Cowson, 
looking severely. 

''Why, hoo’s that. Tommy? He can nivver 
ha’ gan as far as that? ” 

"Verra weel. Ye’ll be tellin’ me next ah’ve 
lost my eyes and ears.” 


80 


TYNE FOLK 


Hoo?” 

Wey, ah was telled by Richy hissel’, and ah 
suppose he kens.” 

” Tommy ! ” 

“That’s a fact. He went strite up to Richy 
and axed him to cum t’ chepple.” 

“ Then ah say it’s disgraceful. It’s makin’ the 
gospel as cheap as dort.” 

Tommy then went into the bar and rearranged 
the shining tankards significantly. Who should 
come next upon the scene but Nickle Fairbank, 
who had not only heard the news, but had actu- 
ally seen Richy Hymers himself on the subject. 

“Ye dinna tell me, Richy, that ye’ve been in- 
vited to chepple ? ” 

“Yes, that I have, Mr. Fairbank; and what’s 
more, ye’ll see me there on Sunday.” 

Richy did not speak the worst Northumbrian, 
for he was an attorney’s clerk. 

“ Richy, are ye mad?” 

“ No, Mr. Fairbank, far from that, but ye would 
think I was if ye knew all.” 

“ Knew all?” 

“Yes. Why, I’ve been up to the minister’s 
lodgings and had my supper with him!” 


DISCRIMINATING GRACE 


81 


Richy, take care ! Remember Ananias and 
Sapphira! ” 

'' Are they two of your bastards, Mr. Fairbank ?” 

Richy, will ye keep a civil tongue in that 
drucken old mooth o’ yours?” 

” Drunken it may be, Mr. Fairbank, but a false- 
hood never came out of it. Mr. Fairbank, you 
never asked me to come to your chapel. Drunken 
I may be, but I have before to-day shared my 
loaf with your nameless children, and found them 
a bed when they would only have had the streets 
to sleep in. The minister knows all about ye, 
for I told him how much ye are respected by 
them who don’t know ye, but never a hard word 
did the minister speak about ye. He prayed with 
me, and that’s what ye never did, Mr. Fairbank. 
And he told me I would be a man yet, but ye 
never told me that. I have seen your wink and 
heard your giggle as poor Richy Hymers stag- 
gered along the street, but I am beginning to 
hope for better days, and if ever I see them I 
shall know very well that I owe no thanks to a 
reprobate of the name of Nickle Fairbank.” 

The young folks wanted to have some clearer 
idea of antinomianism than the local blacksmith 


82 


TYNE FOLK 


could give them, so they applied to Thomas 
Binney, the illustrious Independent minister, a 
man of whom his native Tyne should be forever 
proud, who thus answered their inquiry : 

“ This thing — for it were profane to employ a 
personification requiring either of the pronouns 
by which we represent the majesty of man or the 
attractions of woman — this thing, if it be cher- 
ished, is the crime, if it enter, will prove the 
curse, of the church. Wherever it appears, the 
angel of peace departs. Fostered by perversions 
of Scripture, and indulgent to human depravity, 
it begins by libeling God and ends in corrupting 
man. Without intellect, it cannot be convinced ; 
without feeling, it cannot be mortified ; with noth- 
ing to learn, instruction is unnecessary ; with noth- 
ing to do, exhortations are absurd. With malig- 
nant selfishness, it delights in diminishing the 
number of the redeemed ; and without the capa- 
city of benevolent desire, it surveys the wreck of 
the reprobate with savage satisfaction. It has 
nothing to hope, for all is attained ; it has noth- 
ing to fear, for sin is harmless. Eternally elected, 
anxiety is guilt ; eternally sanctified, contamina- 
tion is impossible. It first abuses an eternal truth, 


DISCRIMINATING GRACE 


83 


and then subsists by an eternal lie. . . . From 
the series of absurdities which has been feebly 
referred to, every one of which might be stated 
in the words of the illustrious illuminati them- 
selves, the reader may conjecture something of 
the probable spirit of those who imbibe them; 
but the multiplied forms of their invincible im- 
pertinence ; their innumerable methods of harass- 
ing a minister; the secret suggestions of some 
and the open accusations of others ; the diversified 
ebullitions of vanity, ignorance, and presumption — 
these defy conjecture, except to an imagination 
as utterly debased and brutal as their own. A 
minister, if he be young; if, in addition to this, 
he be a person of education, but especially of 
talent — then he may rely on the cordial hatred 
and the inveterate virulence of this anti-evangeli- 
cal enormity. It has no knowledge of human 
nature; it believes not either in progression or 
variety of character; it cannot wait for gradual 
development, and is impatient unless it hear from 
all one eternal strain of declamatory folly. It 
ridicules reasoning, because reason is its antago- 
nist; it hates imagination, for it has no taste; it 
despises elegance, because it is vulgar; and elo- 


84 


TYNE FOLK 


quence! — eloquence is heresy — it implies feel- 
ing and benevolence and virtuous enthusiasm, 
and these die under the contaminating touch of 
this mass of moral and intellectual putridity. 
Taste, learning, and extensive acquirements are 
the unpardonable sin ; they suggest at times ideas 
it has never heard, and this is repugnant to its 
necessary and immutable maxim that whatever 
is obviously new must be certainly false ; not 
merely because it knows everything better than 
any one besides, but because all its works were 
finished from the foundation of the world.” 

Some said that “ it thundered.” 


JONAS AND HIS CHURCH 


When we north-country folk were by ourselves 
we were, in a rugged and barbarous way, not 
without a certain kind of respectability. Compar- 
ing ourselves with ourselves, we passed muster 
with mutual approval. It was when some visitor 
came from London and the south that we acutely 
felt what villains, sheep-stealers, raiders, and an- 
archists our ancestors must have been. In the 
shining presence of the cockney we instantly and 
ignominiously reverted to type. Bobby Cruddas, 
the Horsefield house-painter, was simply infatuated 
by a cockney young lady who politely asked him. 
Can you tell me the wye to the styshun ? ” 
Bobby said that it soonded se bonny-like, he 
wished she would ask him a good many other 
questions ” ; and he afterward admitted that he 
not only made a pencil-note of the way she spoke, 
but that he followed her in the hope that she 


85 


86 


TYNE FOLK 


would lose her way and have to ask him for fur- 
ther directions. On the other hand (so different 
are the tastes of men), Hugh Oxley ostentatiously 
despised the south and all its mincing and clip- 
ping ways, contending, as a fundamental propo- 
sition, that ” Tyne talk is reet, as could be proved 
by onybody who would take the trouble t’ gan 
far eneugh back." Bobby and Hugh would get 
quite hot over this dispute, Bobby soothing 
himself with the reflection that Hugh Oxley, 
though a fine fellow in many ways, was sadly 
lacking in the charming and delightful quality 
of inborn polish. Though Bobby was a house- 
painter, employing one or two traveling glaziers 
who were not always sober, he yet condescended 
to speak the vernacular by way of not being hard 
upon the roughness of his fellow-Tynesiders. 
For himself, he preferred the polish of the 
south, but, seeing that his preference would bring 
him under the merciless banter of his local con- 
temporaries, he plunged up to the throat in the 
mire of his native tongue. 

“ At forst," said Bobby, delicately adapting 
himself to his audience, and despising himself for 
the condescension, — '' at forst ah didn’t ken what 


JONAS AND HIS CHURCH 


87 


she meant by the ‘ wye to the styshun/ but it 
did soond eddicated and tiptop, mind ye.” To 
which Hugh replied: 

“ And a bonny seet thoo kens aboot eddicated 
and tiptop. Man, I wad think shem o’ meesel’ 
t’ toke aboot wye and gite and dye and styshun ; 
it’s not only bad spellin’, it seems to me to be 
somethin’ verry like mockin’ Providence.” 

When Hugh said “ verry ” instead of “ verra,” 
he was taking a religious and public-meeting view 
of the question. 

Armstrong, the milkman, struck in here with 
fresh illustrations, by right of which he acquired 
momentary distinction and influence. Armstrong 
solemnly declared that a man from the south 
deliberately asked him the price of ’am and hegs ; ' 
but not a soul in the company would believe that 
“ ony man wad meake sic a feul o’ hissel’ ” as to 
say “’am” instead of “ham,” and “hegs ” instead 
of ''eggs.” It is the glory of the Tyne, silvery 
or coaly, that it knows all about h. Armstrong 
wished to corroborate his testimony by the assur- 
ance that he had heard a lady from the south 
characterize the whole human family as dust and 
“hashes,” but he was howled down not only as a 


88 


TYNE FOLK 


jokester, but as a positive and malignant slanderer. 
It is characteristic of the Tyne that it thinketh 
no evil.” 

Jonas Harlow was an erratic fellow, who was 
well balanced by Hugh Oxley. Jonas was up to 
date in infidelity and in the general cutting out 
and distribution of his habits. He thought the 
Tyne was lagging behind the march of events, 
and that it was his duty to take a move in ad- 
vance by giving up church and chapel and medi- 
tating in the fields on Sunday mornings. 

Whee wants to lis’n to an ode boomer like 
that, tokin’ aboot things that nee human creatur’ 
cares a button for? ” was the severe inquiry which 
he propounded respecting the local dissenting 
minister, and which he also launched at the 
whitening head of the venerable vicar. Jonas was 
democratic and progressive, and it was painfully 
true of him that he did not hide his light under 
a bushel ; in fact, no bushel was large enough to 
cover that far-radiating luminary. The fields 
were his temples, the winds his unclothed chor- 
isters. Jonas Harlow was so determined to give 
up faith that he swallowed evolution, agnosti- 
cism, and altruism, without making any inquiry 


JONAS AND HIS CHURCH 


89 


about them. The very words carried their own 
verification. Jonas was thin, and for that reason 
he thought he looked rather intellectual and re- 
fined, and Jonas had a notion that to dabble a 
little in infidelity made him an object both of in- 
terest and solicitude. Jonas Harlow was suffi- 
ciently lacking in the poetic faculty to allow him- 
self to imagine that he would one day cut a figure 
in the world; and sufficiently lacking in self- 
appreciation not to know that he was cutting one 
every day, to the disgust of an observant circle. 
When Jonas was meditating in the fields he 
swelled out into the very largest consciousness 
of their personal proprietorship, and when he left 
them he simply pitied the benighted people who 
had been singing hymns and saying prayers under 
church roofs. 

“Well, Jonas,” said Hugh Oxley, “I didn’t 
see ye i’ chapel this morning.” 

“No, indeed; there you will never see me 
again.” 

“Why, how d’ye spend yer Sundays?” 

“ In the church of nature ” (Jonas dropped the 
vernacular), “ among growing trees and the wav- 
ing corn, and listening to a thousand larks twit- 


90 


TYNE FOLK 


tering their matins under the bending blue, and 
making the air alive with spontaneous music.” 

La’ds alive,” said Hugh, where did ye get 
all them fine words?” 

‘‘ Ah,” said Jonas, relapsing into the vernacu- 
lar, ” cum away, man, and hear the voice o’ natur’, 
and dinna bother theesel’ wi’ harmoniums and 
bass fiddles, and blashy stuff aboot the foie o’ 
man and No’s flud, and sic bogy rubbish.” 

“Good,” said Hugh; “mind, it’s a bargain; 
next Sunda’, nine o’clock.” Hugh knew a good 
deal more about nature than Jonas Harlow was 
ever likely to know, for was he not a child of the 
fields, and was he not known as a farming Esau ? 
Nor was Hugh Oxley deaf to the voices of nature. 
His was an answering heart. He could not have 
put his feelings into formal words, but his han- 
dling even of a dogrose was not the action of a 
boor. Besides this, he had come into contact with 
the gentle wizard of Westfield, of whom more 
presently, who set up the kingdom of God under 
the open sky and on the shore of the great sea. 

Next Sunday morning came, and nine o’clock 
rung out from the old church clock. The hour 
and the men ! But where was nature ? It never 


JONAS AND HIS CHURCH 


91 


occurred to anybody that nature would not be 
forthcoming. There was a kind of nature, but 
not Jonas Harlow’s kind. The wind screamed 
from the southwest, and rain swept in tempests 
over the shivering fields ; rivers ran down the wide 
turnpike, and no living thing ventured abroad. 

'' Come on,” said Hugh, “or we shall be late 
for the larks, Jonas!” 

“ But we canna gan the day I ” 

“Nonsense!” Hugh roared, in a tone which 
made the thin man rattle, “ nonsense ! We’re 
men. We’ll dry again. Come on!” 

“ But we’ll catch cold!” 

“Never mind. Jonas!” (shouted as if across 
a torrent) “Jonas!” (the final letter a piercing 
hiss) “ think o' the green grass, the wavy, wavy 
corn ” (with a touch of Handel in the cadence) ; 
“ and, Jonas, think o’ the larks and the ' sponta- 
neous music ’ ! Come on, lad ! ” 

“ But it’s as much as ma life’s worth,” and a 
great shock of wind raged past the house and 
rocked its very foundations. But nothing would 
change Hugh’s decision. He had made an ap- 
pointment and he would keep it, and Jonas could 
not for shame decline. 


92 


TYNE FOLK 


"‘But it’s madness!” Jonas bitterly exclaimed; 
and Hugh cheerfully answered, I like madness. 
Jonas, this’ll be an anecdote; for many genera- 
tions people will tell how Jonas Harlow went t’ 
chorch in 'the brave days of old.’ Howay, 
hinny!” 

As the two men plunged through the torrents, 
Hugh hummed to himself for miles, after the 
manner of Handel, " the wavy, wavy, wavy corn ; ” 
and, "Jonas ! ” nudging the thin man impressively, 
"the larks, the bonny, bonny larks!” 

When, after a weary trudge through pools and 
thick mud, the church-goers got to the top of the 
hill, no living thing was to be seen ; it was Noah’s 
flood without Noah’s dove ; poor old nature was 
steeping herself in waters which effectually con- 
cealed the beauty of her form. 

" Noo,” said Hugh, " we must sit down in this 
comfortable chorch.” 

" Oh no,” said Jonas. 

" But I insist on’t,” Hugh decisively rejoined; 
" we cannot stand in chorch ; it wad freeten the 
larks and be disrespectfu’ to the claims of nature,” 
and so saying he sat down in a pool, and drew 
Jonas reluctantly after him. Hugh did not ex- 


JONAS AND HIS CHURCH 93 

plain that he had made careful provision of a 
waterproof kind for his own protection. 

**Noo,” said Hugh, “when d’ye think they’ll 
begin? Ye ken the habits o’ the place, and I 
want to know when they’ll come.” 

“What?” Jonas inquired. 

“ What ? Why, the larks ; didn’t ye tell me I 
should hear some larks ? ” 

“ Not the day.” 

“ D’ye mean to say they’ll disappoint us after 
all our self-denyin’ efforts?” 

“ Yis.” 

“Then where’s the corn, Jonas, the wavy, 
wavy, wavy corn?” 

“Ye canna see’d the day.” 

“ But isn’t this Sunda’, and is it possible ’at 
nature can disappoint her worshipers?” 

Poor Jonas was not equal to the occasion. Fate 
was hard on the thin man. Hugh was in his 
very element ; for farmers, especially in the rough 
north, are almost amphibious, so that it is second 
nature to them to have the rain pouring off their 
heads and welling up from their boots. As to 
sitting down in the pool, I have shown how art 
sometimes comes to the assistance of helpless 


94 


TYNE FOLK 


nature. The two men were not unduly talkative 
as they came wearily down the hill. Hugh cer- 
tainly did ask what Jonas thought of Noah’s 
famous flood, and Jonas answered testily, not at 
all in the calm manner of a fair-minded commen- 
tator, or even an ardent abettor of criticism, high 
or low. Hugh thought that Jonas had a depressed 
look, and that his long, curly hair clung limply 
around his white, intellectual face. 

Well, Jonas,” said he, “ we part here. Your 
place o’ worship is well ventilated, but it might 
be better drained. I bear ye nee grudge, and ye 
munna be offended when I give ye ma opinion 
that a day in yer chorch is a vast deal better 
than a thoosan’.” 


RICHY HYMERS AND MARY 


Mary Oliver was the unmarried sister of 
Mrs. Richy Hymers, the drunken clerk’s broken- 
down wife. Mary was one of those fair-haired, 
sunny-faced women who can see in the dark, and 
softly hum some lay of hope when the turtle’s 
voice is silent in the land. They are the most 
precious of women, as having a ministry of cheer 
and gladness when things are at the very worst, 
just when you want the help of angels. So 
wonderful was Mary’s power of hope that she 
often said to her sister Charlotte that Richy might 
some day turn from his evil ways and lead a sober 
life. Charlotte’s faith was hardly equal to the 
reception of such a gospel, yet she pondered it 
in her heart. Who can lay a line upon the whole 
measure of a woman’s love, and state the length 
in plain figures? Were it a straight line the task 
would be easy enough, but who can unravel in- 
95 


96 


TYNE FOLK 


volutions, complications, and microscopic inter- 
braidings too shrinkingly sensitive for the touch 
of cold arithmetic? Wife and God are not the 
same, but they are so vitally akin that they can 
meet in some measure of common understanding 
when the problem is a human soul far strayed and 
helpless. Poor Richy Hymers was such a prob- 
lem. At the point where we now join him, he 
is struggling under the burden of a special antici- 
pation. Mary Oliver was his willing confidante. 

Mary, hinny ” (Richy occasionally employed 
the vernacular), Pm thinking o’ Charlotte’s con- 
dition when I’m taken away, and I want ye to 
do all ye can for her.” 

Of course I’ll do that.” 

“ Aye, aye, but I don’t want any ^ of courses ' ; 
I want something more than that, something that’s 
not ^ of course,’ something that is almost above 
human nature — that’s what I want from you.” 

“ Well, what is it? ” 

“ I know, and yet I cannot tell. I want to 
make up for the past.” 

“ That’s impossible, Richy.” 

“Yes, yes, in a way. The young minister is 
sure that everything, no matter how bad, can be 


RICHY HYMERS AND MARY 


97 


forgiven and forgotten. He told me so in these 
very words. I was not likely to forget them 
when they came so near home. I want to lie 
down at Charlotte’s feet and let her trample on 
me. She never upbraids me. Her very love is 
my sorest punishment. Why does she not up- 
braid me ? ” 

Well, Richy, the time’s gone by for that, for 
two years and more.” 

That’s due to the young minister, and we 
must never forget it.” 

Charlotte knows that, and is never tired of 
telling it.” 

“ She’s not ashamed of the young minister, 
then?” 

Ashamed of him ? I should think not. She 
adores him.” 

'' How that warms my heart ! I have seen 
things go from worse to worse ; I have watched 
the lines of grief get deeper and deeper on her 
lovely face, and I have noticed the horrible shad- 
ows gathering round her beautiful eyes. Perhaps 
that’s the way she upbraided me without mean- 
ing to do so. After I’m dead and gone, Mary, 

I want you to watch over Charlotte. Never let 


98 


TYNE FOLK 


her have a lonely minute. That’s what I want 
to talk about.” 

“ Well, that shall be done, Richy ; here’s my 
hand.” 

It is a great comfort to me, Mary, to think 
how our money affairs were left. It was wise of 
my father to put the bulk of the money out of 
my reach, and let me have just the income of a 
hundred and fifty a year. Charlotte has her own 
sixty pounds a year, and you have yours, so if 
you both live together you will have a moderate 
but comfortable income. Watch over her to the 
very end. Let nobody else close her eyes . . 

'' It will be all right, Richy.” 

'' It breaks my heart to think that somebody 
else will lay her in the grave, and yet about the 
only comfort I now have is that she will watch 
my going out of the valley.” 

“ Mary,” Richy continued after a pause, 
“Mary!” 

“Yes, Richy.” 

“ What do you think of my buying Charlotte 
a black satin dress? ” 

“ But can you afford it? ” 

“ Yes. I am getting back my power of mind, 


RICHY HYMERS AND MARY 


99 


and you know there are some things I can do 
better than most men of my class, because of the 
thorough schooling my father gave me, and I 
made an extra fifty-pound note last year, and 
I want to please Charlotte.” 

‘^Yes.” 

“ I have, I may tell you, for I know you can 
keep a secret — I have bought the satin.” 

“You have?” 

“ Yes.” 

“ But how did you know how much would be 
enough for a dress? ” 

“ That puzzled me for a while, but at last I 
got a piece of string and measured from the neck 
to the waist, and knotted the turns, then I mea- 
sured the length of the skirt, and then I got the 
size of the shoulders and the waist.” 

“ She would wonder whatever you could be 
measuring her for.” 

“ Her? You don't suppose I measured Char- 
lotte herself?” 

“ What did you do then, Richy ? ” 

“ What did I do? Why, of course, I got one 
of her dresses — ” 

“Oh, you cunning man!” 


100 


TYNE FOLK 


” And there I was ! Eh, but I did shake for 
fear she should find me out” 

How much satin did ye get? ” 

I paid for eight and twenty yards.” 

'' Are ye mad? ” 

“ No, I am not mad. You know Charlotte 
has a sister, Mary — ” 

Oh, you wicked Richy!” 

“ And I thought both the sisters should be 
dressed exactly alike.” 

But where’s the satin, Richy? ” 

It’s at the minister’s, locked up in the drawer 
with his Sunday clothes ; and oh, Mary, the clothes 
are very green and creasy!” 

Poor man!” 

^^Ye may well say poor man. I bought him 
a suit, and I told him I would give up going to 
hear him if he didn’t wear it.” 

“ Richy, I love you ! ” 

“ That’s nothing in return for what he has done 
for me. But don’t forget what I told you about 
our Charlotte. When the lamp burns low I want 
you to sing some little hymn to her. Never tell 
her she’s dying — never let her hear that word; 
cheer her to the very last; and don’t ask her if 


RICHY HYMERS AND MARY 


101 


she’s happy — don’t trouble her with any ques- 
tions. Now we can come back to the minister.” 

“ Yes.” 

‘'We owe everything to him; he is the best 
man I ever knew.” 

“ And I’m sure Charlotte thinks the same.” 

“ But she little thinks how badly used a man 
he is.” 

“What is he badly used for, Richy?” 

“ For preaching the universal and boundless 
love of God.” 

“ Impossible ! ” 

“ For preaching that a man like Richy Hymers 
can repent and be saved.” 

“ Richy, you are making it all up!” 

“ I wish I was. Well, they have left him to 
starve on a pound a week. They want to starve 
him out. They want to show that whoever else 
God loves. He does not love him. Nickle Fair- 
bank makes no secret of it that they want to 
starve him out.” 

“ Why does he stay among such people ? He 
should leave them.” 

“ Not he. Never a hard word do you hear 
from him. I believe he prays for the wretches 


102 


TYNE FOLK 


every night. I have seen his lips tremble when 
he has named some of them. He has a heavenly 
mind.” 

Poor thing!” 

I once had my supper with him, and it would 
have gone to your heart to see what that supper 
was. He lodges at old Sally Lawson’s down by 
the tan-pits, and has only one room, with the 
bed stored away in the corner out of sight, a sort 
of press-bed that looks something like a chest of 
drawers. We had coffee and brown bread, but 
no butter and no sugar, and he said black coffee 
was good for his headache, and he gave me the 
little pot of milk ; then a light came into his face 
as he opened a brown paper parcel and showed 
me the remains of a few pounds of cheese his poor 
mother had sent him on his birthday. O Mary I ” 
“ And him a minister,” sacrificing grammar to 
feeling. 

” Aye, and such a minister. There may be 
lazy ministers or there may not, but here’s a 
man body and soul in his work.” 

And onlyaboutapoundaweek, did you say?” 

Yes, and not a murmuring word on his lips. 
He’s a clever little fellow with his hands, though 


RICHY HYMERS AND MARY 


103 


he was a weaver. A month since he showed me 
a few shelves he had nailed together as a book- 
case, and he had only three books to put into it. 
A week since there were twelve books in it, and 
he told me that an unknown friend had sent them 
from Newcastle.” 

Would it be Nickle Fairbank, think ye, 
Richy ? ” 

Richy smiled. “ I want,” he continued, “ to 
make the twelve up to twenty. I thought I had 
drunk every bit of feeling out of me, but when I 
saw that empty bookcase I could not keep the 
tears back, and I could not help him seeing 
them ;. . . . and there was something more that 
I noticed, ... a few portraits of preachers cut 
out of some magazine and nailed on a board he 
had covered with green baize, and he called them 
' fathers and brethren in the ministry,’ and when 
I asked him if his own portrait had ever appeared 
in any magazine, he said only great preachers 
and writers could expect such honor.” 

What a pity!” Mary said, answering some 
thought of her own. 

We could do something more for him, only 
I’m almost afraid to try.” 


104 


TYNE FOLK 


Afraid?” 

Yes, for his sake. People would say, like to 
like, what sort of minister can he be when he 
spends so much time with Richy Hymers?” 

Mary took up her New Testament and read 
(without a word of her own), ‘‘ And they all 
murmured that He was gone to be guest with a 
man that is a sinner.” 

‘^Beautiful, isn’t it, Mary?” 

“ That’s why I read it. Charlotte will do any- 
thing in the world for such a minister. What 
can we think of, Richy? ” 

“ I think he should spend one night a week 
with us.” 

‘‘ Charlotte would like that.” 

He hasn’t had a holiday since he came to the 
town.” 

Could we not beg five pounds and make him 
a little present? ” 

“ We might do that, but he would never spend 
it on a holiday. He sends all he can save to his 
father and mother. When I told him that he 
had not had a holiday for two years, he said his 
mother never had a holiday in her life ! And he 
said before he had a holiday he would like his 


RICHY HYMERS AND MARY 


105 


mother to have one. You see there’s no silly 
pride about him. He’s as simple-hearted as a 
little child, and about as like Jesus . . 

Richy and Mary rested awhile in silence. Then 
Mary softly said, Could we not send something 
to the minister’s mother?” 

What?” 

A nice comfortable dress ; and write a line 
telling her it was from some friends who had 
been helped by him. We need not put any name. 
It would make her young again for his sake.” 

It was not long after this that Charlotte herself 
had something to tell Richy. Old Sally Lawson 
had called to consult as to what had better be 
done under circumstances which had surprised 
and overpowered her. Sally was not a woman 
made for emergencies, but as good an old house- 
hold clock as ever kept a kitchen up to the mark 
in punctual repetitions. For handling the ordi- 
nary, Sally was without a superior ; for handling 
the extraordinary, Sally was weaker than the 
weakest of her sex. It appears that the young 
minister had approached Sally on the delicate 
subject of temporarily enlarging his sleeping ac- 
commodation. “That’s just what he axed me. 


106 


TYNE FOLK 


hinny,” said Sally, touching the corner of one eye 
with a spotless whity-brown apron. '' He wants 
another bedroom, and, like all the other men, he 
thinks it can be done, though, as ah told him, 
we hadn’t room eneuf to torn roond in.” Sally 
explained that the room would only be wanted 
for about a week. And what d’ye think he 
says, hinny? Ye nivver heerd sic a thing i’ ole 
your born days. He says he could sleep in the 
little room where the water-cistern is, and his 
father and mother could have his press-bed. 
D’ye think, Mrs. Hymers, he’s lossin’ his heid, 
poor lad? ” 

Mrs. Hymers gave Sally a strong assurance on 
this critical point, and said : 

“ Do you think he can afford it, Sally?” 

“ That ah divvent ken. He pays me to the 
day, but his whole bill for eatin’ and drinkin’ last 
week cam’ to twee and ninepence.” 

Mrs. Hymers expressed her pained surprise. 

Meind ye,” Sally continued, his mother 
sends him bits o’ cheese, for her sister is married 
to a farmer, and she gets the cheese for the bare 
cost o’ makin’ it, and ah sometimes slip in a bit 


RICHY HYMERS AND MARY 


107 


butter and say nowt aboot it; poor bairn, he’s 
thin eneuf.” 

Sally breathed, and continued : Ah nivver 
had ony opinion o’ that dorty little Independent 
chepple ; ah nivver could see nee use on’t. Ivver 
sin’ ah can meind on’t, there’s always been a row 
at the Independent chepple. We nivver ha’ sic 
a thing amang the Methodisses ; we’re ow’r-busy 
singin’ and prayin’ to hev teim for mischief. 
Eh, but ah meind the teim when the ’Postle 
Peter, as we used to cole him, preached neet 
after neet at a grand revival, and shooted aboot 
the luv o’ God at the tiptop o’ his voice, and old 
John Morra sat i’ the table pew groanin’ becose 
he couldn’t keep in his joy ; . . .eh, bairn, them 
was teims.” 

I never knew there were such people as In- 
dependents until Mr. Hymers went to hear the 
young preacher.” 

Eh, he thinks ole the world o’ Mr. Hymers. 
He says Mr. Hymers’ll be a comfort tiv him on 
the day o’ judgment. Ah believe he wad leave 
the place if it wasn’t for Mr. Hymers, and ah 
dinna ken what ah wad de if he was to leave. 


108 


TYNE FOLK 


He’s somethin’ to get up for i’ the mornin’, and 
it does my old heart good to hear his step at the 
door, whativver time o’ day it may be.” 

He’s more like a Methodist, isn’t he, than an 
Independent? ” 

” Eh, hinny, ah wadn’t like to say what an In- 
dependent’s like. Ah suppose they’re like them 
bouncin’ Gregory lasses, ole six feet, or not far 
off, holdin’ their flashy bonnets se hee ye wad 
think their grandfeyther was Lord Mayor o’ 
London, but ah know he kept a coal-cairt and 
went aboot sellin’ coals till his good-for-nothin’ 
brother made money in Australia.” 

'' Then,” said Mrs. Hymers, “ there’s Nickle 
Fairbank.” 

“Nickle Fairbank!” Sally exclaimed, “the 
brute!” The meaning was in the tone — and in 
the terrible r. 


JIMMY 


James Robson was without doubt our most 
literary character, and if we, well knowing this, 
called him Jimmy, which is, I believe, a fact, it 
was not out of disrespect to his abilities and as- 
pirations. Owing to circumstances over which 
Jimmy had no control, he was obliged to use a 
crutch and to be very careful of the night air, 
which may largely account for his taking to pen 
and ink much more than most of his fellow-towns- 
men of the same age. His delicate health was in 
a sense the making of him, for, driving him to 
study, he became accountant enough to accept 
the secretaryship of the local savings bank, where, 
in addition to so much money, he enjoyed a well- 
planned house in a nice position, together with 
coal and gas. It was under the roof of the savings 
bank that Jimmy formed our Young Men’s Mutual 
Improvement Society, and in that society were 
109 


110 


TYNE FOLK 


trained many illustrious debaters who would have 
been willing to go forward to Parliament had cir- 
cumstances favored their glowing and patriotic 
ambition. At the inauguration of the society it 
is distinctly remembered that Jimmy delivered an 
address on the present condition of Europe which 
occupied thirty-five minutes; one man said, in- 
deed, that he timed it to forty minutes within 
fifteen seconds, but it was known that this youth 
was addicted to exaggeration. An outsider, who 
was stung to desperation by malignant envy, 
deliberately gave it as his opinion that so long an 
address “served them right”; but this bitter- 
spirited youth, though under twenty, had long 
outlived his power to do harm. Not for the world 
would he have liked such a remark to have reached 
Jimmy’s ears, for the obvious reason that Jimmy 
would have slated him in the “ District Unicorn,” 
for which he wrote local notes. “ Eh, take care 
o’ what ye’re sayin’, or Jimmy’ll put ye i’ the 
' Unicorn,’ ” was a daily caution to evil-doers. 
By reason of this newspaper influence, which he 
was not unwilling to use seeing that he was paid 
by the inch, Jimmy became a terror to the pallid 
community that picked up its daily bread under 


JIMMY 


111 


his searching eyes. The fear was that Jimmy 
would put the young minister and his parents 
into the Unicorn.” This was hinted to Nickle 
Fairbank, the unwedded father of many children. 
The suggestion exactly suited the disposition of 
that amiable antinomian. It was a capital idea. 
He would see Jimmy and prime him to the muzzle. 
There would be such fun in the place as had never 
been known. Nickle said he would suggest to 
Jimmy a style of light banter, a quizzing, satirical, 
biting style. The two old Scotch folks would 
lend themselves admirably to that sort of treat- 
ment; their carpet-bag, the old man’s furtive 
glance, the old woman’s black-and-gray shawl, 
and their great, flapping, green cotton umbrella 
— what more could a keen-eyed artist want ? He 
would see Jimmy at once. He saw Jimmy; he 
sketched the situation to Jimmy ; and Jimmy 
spontaneously and with conscious sufficiency rose 
to the occasion. But there were some prelimi- 
naries to be settled. How many copies of the 
Unicorn ” would Mr. Fairbank take ? He would 
take fifty copies and pay for them in advance, 
and leave Jimmy to send them all up and down 
the locality. But suppose a libel case should be 


112 


TYNE FOLK 


the result? Nothing would please Nickle more. 
He would give a written undertaking to stand 
between Jimmy and all consequences. He would 
be Jimmy’s friend ever after, come rain or shine. 
Nickle could hardly get home without telling 
everybody on the road. He did give broad hints 
to a few. “ If,” said he to one and another, par- 
ticularly to Clarke, the cheesemonger, and to 
Clement, the churchwarden, ** if you get a marked 
copy of the ' District Unicorn ’ next Wednesday, 
you will know who sent it to you.” On Sunday 
he told twelve people, and they were so excited 
that he slipped slyly into Jimmy’s house and paid 
for fifty more, with the instruction that they were 
to be sent specially to church people.” He 
then clapped Jimmy on the shoulder and told him 
that without doubt he was the coming man. It 
should be made clear that Jimmy did not belong 
to any of the sects. What sort of religion he ac- 
cepted may be inferred from the article in the 
“ Unicorn.” Here it is: 

For many years the Independent chapel has 
been frankly spoken of as a bear-garden, but there 
are now happy signs of its becoming a cage of 
doves. The great saint of the scene is none other 


JIMMY 


113 


than Nickle Fairbank, the spotless Pharisee who 
is popularly known as the unwedded father of a 
numerous and aggressive progeny. Nickle is in 
such high glee that he has asked me to write 
about the whole matter in a style of light banter, 
which he calls a quizzing, satirical, biting style; 
but I feel it impossible to adopt the airy sugges- 
tion, as I should feel it quite out of my way to 
make a few jaunty remarks upon that delightful 
beast, the hippopotamus. Nickle himself called 
on me, and briefed me with many compliments. 
He paid in advance, for fifty copies of the " Uni- 
corn,’ and returned to pay for fifty more ; and he 
actually gave me a written undertaking to hold 
me harmless in the event of a libel suit arising. 
But no libel suit can arise, because Nickle Fair- 
bank is the subject, and of him I shall say nothing 
that is not, to Nickle’s own knowledge, painfully 
true. Nickle never was a gentleman and never 
will be one. Nickle hates the new minister, who 
has won golden opinions among the poor, the 
downcast, and the helpless. The young minister 
is quite an angel of hope in the parish. His ro- 
mantic and blood-curdling idea is that the love 
of God is so great that it includes even Nickle 


114 


TYNE FOLK 


Fairbank. This is the only point upon which he 
shocks the sentiment of our Christian population. 
Nickle is an antinomian ; that is, I understand, a 
man who, as a darling of grace, may live as he 
likes without committing sin. The sins of Nickle 
Fairbank are credited to him as special claims on 
the bounty of heaven. Nickle is an employer of 
labor, and the cry of his laborers has gone up to 
heaven as a fierce protest and come back upon 
Nickle as a deadly curse. The young minister is 
the object of Nickle’s most furious vengeance. 
The young man’s father and mother have been to 
see him, and Nickle has asked me to satirize the 
old folks, and to make game of their carpet-bag, 
their poor clothes, and what he calls their boorish- 
ness. He has found out that the old man put his 
knife into his mouth when eating, and that the old 
woman drank her tea out of her saucer ; and he 
asked me to hold these habits up to ridicule, so 
that the young minister’s own bringing up might 
be discredited. This is the man who is godly 
above all, the biggest gem in the divine crown, 
the envy and the despair of angels. Nickle will 
hardly blush when he reads this eulogy, for he is 
well aware that no encomium can reach the full 
height of his transcendent merits. The readers 


JIMMY 


115 


of the ‘ Unicorn ’ will now see exactly what right 
Nickle Fairbank has to criticize other people — ■ 
the indefeasible right of an adulterer, an oppres- 
sor, and a Pharisee.” 

It was characteristic of our people that when 
they once took anything up they never laid it 
down again. The younger and rougher sort 
would gather in little groups at certain street 
corners and look out for passers-by on whom they 
could expend their vulgar jokes. They had an 
evil genius, too, for nicknaming people, without 
any regard to feeling or delicacy. If this bad 
practice was excusable at all it was certainly ex- 
cusable in the case of Nickle Fairbank. 

“ Nickle, hollo there ! Ha’ ye seen the ‘ Uni- 
corn ’ ? ” 

Hi, canny man, hoo’s the family the day ? ” 

“ Nickle, send us another ' Unicorn ’ ! ” 

Three cheers for the ^ Unicorn,’ and three for 
Jimmy Robson!” 

“ Nickle, thenk ye for sendin’ us a marked 
copy o’ the ‘ Unicorn.’ ” 

Hi, canny man, are ye gannin to see Jimmy 
again? ” 

These genial remarks were from the rough and 
vulgar, who bring every little town into discredit. 


116 


TYNE FOLK 


but they were not nearly so stinging as the thanks 
of the persons to whom marked copies had been 
sent, '' especially church people.” 

“ Thank you for the marked copy of the ' Uni- 
corn ’ you sent me, Mr. Fairbank; but why you 
should have sent it I cannot understand.” 

I never sent it,” snappishly. 

But you told me yourself you were going to 
send it, and it came.” 

You shouldn’t have read such rubbish.” 

I not only read it, Mr. Fairbank; I sent it to 
my son in Australia.” 

Then the flashily dressed Misses Gregory came 
to thank him, and they told him they were glad 
he had publicly confessed. 

Confessed what? ” 

Your horrible sins, Mr. Fairbank,” said Eliz- 
abeth. We had often heard rumors of your 
secret wickedness, but we could never altogether 
believe them; but now we know what you are. 
We have bought several copies of the ‘ Unicorn ’ 
and sent them to Canada.” 

Perhaps as cruel a thing as any was a note from 
the vicar, a very serious man — so painfully serious 
as to be utterly incapable of humor. The vicar 
presented his compliments to Mr. Fairbank, and 


JIMMY 


117 


would be greatly obliged by another copy of the 
"^Unicorn,” as he had sent the former copy to an 
old parishioner who was settled in South Africa 
and was always anxious to know what was going 
on in the neighborhood. 

Then came the young minister himself. I 
should long since have given his name as Robert 
Sands. He was really a gentle young fellow, truly 
imbued with heavenly love. 

‘‘ I assure you, Mr. Fairbank, I was grieved to 
read last week’s ' Unicorn.’ ” 

“ What did you read it for? ” Nickle snappishly 
inquired. 

“ Because I was told you had sent it to me and 
had marked it.” 

'' Didn’ you put Jimmy up to the job?” 

I never saw the writer; I don’t know him; I 
am utterly innocent.” 

Then get back to your weaving, you hateful 
hypocrite ! ” 

‘'Mr. Fairbank!” 

“ If I had a horsewhip I would ‘ Mr. Fairbank ’ 
ye. Get out!” 

“You do not make me angry, Mr. Fairbank, 
but you do make me sorry.” 

The young minister called in a day or two on 


118 


TYNE FOLK 


James Robson, who received him with manly 
cordiality. At once Jimmy assumed the whole 
responsibility of the article, and expressed his 
determination to muzzle Fairbank or draw every 
tooth in his head. 

'' But you will only enrage him, Mr. Robson, 
and make him worse than ever.” 

'' You leave that to me. I suppose you know 
what a lasso is? ” 

Yes.” 

“ Well, I’ve got the noose over the bull’s head, 
and the rest is easy.” 

Whatever do you mean, Mr. Robson?” 

Read that ” : 

“ Mr. Robson informs Mr. Fairbank that next 
week there will be another and much more detailed 
article in the * District Unicorn,’ unless a most 
humble apology be sent to the Rev. Robert Sands, 
the honored and lawfully elected minister of the 
Independent chapel, withdrawing the scandalous 
language addressed to that gentleman by Mr. 
Fairbank, and unless the said apology be accom- 
panied by a check for ten guineas, made payable 
to the order of Hugh Simpson, Esq., treasurer of 
the District Hospital. Mr. Robson only adds that 


JIMMY 


lid 

he has had a visit from Mrs. Cox, the meaning of 
which Mr. Fairbank knows only too well.” 

“That is what I mean, and you will get the 
apology before six o’clock.” 

I have said that it was characteristic of our 
people that when they once took anything up 
they never laid it down again. It was also char- 
acteristic of them to refer to all local events as if 
they were dates of the world. Others might date 
from the flood of Noah, and others from the fall 
of man, but we date from the windy Monday that 
blew down Mewburn’s manor-house, the black 
Friday when Thompson’s foundry was burned, or 
the snowy Sunday when all Henderson’s fourteen 
pigs broke out of their sties and ran down Piper- 
gate as if they were mad. Now we dated from 
Jimmy Robson’s article in the “ Unicorn.” “ D’ye 
mind, Tom, it was just aboot the time Jimmy 
Robson’s article cam’ oot?” “Jimmy, divvent 
ye ken that Sal Reston ran away th’ verra week 
Nickle Fairbank was scarified i’ th’ * Unicorn’?” 
But Richy Hymers was not content to let such a 
tradition pass without a lasting memorial ; so when 
Jimmy was made registrar of births, deaths, and 
marriages, which brought him in clear forty 


120 


TYNE FOLK 


pounds a year, and which was due in a very in- 
direct but quite traceable way to the Fairbank 
article, Richy bought him an ebony crutch with 
a broad silver band round the middle, inscribed : 

* Unicorn.’ ^ Well done, thou good and faithful 
servant’ ” This made it very difficult to call the 
owner of such a crutch by the name of Jimmy, 
and to have called him James would have been 
to give the impression that we had quarreled with 
him. 


NICKLE’S WAY 


Travel up the westerly road from the south 
side of the town and you will come to a path 
which strikes off to the left and leads to a de- 
pressed section of the country surrounded by 
many old elms of quite a gigantic height. The 
general impression of the place is dampness. The 
house is so placed that a horn of the hill cuts off 
the morning sun, and a thick clump of towering 
pines makes it difficult for the setting sun to give 
a good light to the west-looking chambers. When 
a thick mist settles on the farmery it lingers quite 
a long time, in spite of winds that on the higher 
land would be regarded as fresh and healthy. 
The furniture has the air of being a specimen of 
the three years' hire system, everything being 
impressively hard and just large enough to be too 
small ; the redeeming exception being a really fine 
old upright clock standing at the end of a long 


122 


TYNE FOLK 


passage, and striking as with an intelligent dis- 
gust at the lonely misery of everything in the 
place but itself. This is the residence to which 
Nickle Fairbank retired after he sent to his friends, 
“ especially church people,” marked copies of the 
“District Unicorn.” In the terms of Jimmy 
Robson’s demand, Nickle wrote the apology and 
paid the money, and having done so he retired to 
this intermediate cemetery. The November mists 
hung heavily among the elms, their bare black 
arms being hardly visible as the Rev. Robert 
Sands approached the damp-looking house. Let 
there be no mistake about it ; strange and incred- 
ible as it may appear, beyond all doubt it was 
none other than the Rev. Robert Sands, the min- 
ister who preached the revolting doctrine of the 
universal love of God. Nickle Fairbank had sent 
for him and Nickle received him with marked 
respect. The minister might have suspected 
treachery, but he did not. 

“ Mr. Sands,” said Nickle, “ I want you to do 
me a favor.” 

“I am at your service,” was the immediate 
reply. 

“ There is a man in the house whom you know.” 


NICK LBS IV AY 


123 


Indeed!” 

” It is your friend, Richy Hymers, who thinks 
all the world of you.” 

”You surprise me.” 

Very likely. Mrs. Cox is here, and six chil- 
dren. I have made all the legal and necessary 
arrangements, and I want you to marry us.” 

My dear sir!” 

”Yes. Certain legal words must be spoken, 
but after them I want to say certain other words 
which I have drawn up and which you, as offici- 
ating minister, must put into my mouth.” 

” Very well.” 

This is the form : ' I, Nickle Fairbank, do take 
thee, Mary Cox, to be my lawful wedded wife, 
and I pledge that I will do all in my power to 
repair the wicked and shameful wrong I have done 
thee, so help me God, for whose mercy I humbly 
pray.’ ” 

” I repeat, I am at your service, and I tell you 
my heart is full of joy.” 

As Mr. Sands and Mr. Hymers walked back 
they noticed that the mist had quite cleared off 
and that in the west there were signs of a calm 
evening and a fair morrow. The two men might 


124 


TYNE FOLK 


have talked a good deal, but they kept long si- 
lence, broken at last by Mr. Sands saying, as if 
to himself, “ ' And his flesh came again as the 
flesh of a little child,’ ” and then he said something 
to Richy about new beginnings and of the love 
river in which men drop their loathsome leprosies. 

Mr. Fairbank wished me to give you some- 
thing,” said Richy. 

Indeed!” 

He said I was not to give it until we came to 
Hawthorn fields, and here they are.” 

What is it? ” 

A letter. I know nothing of its contents. I 
will lean over yonder till you read it.” 

So Mr. Sands read it alone : Pity the poor 
fool who hated you and wronged you. I am at 
your feet ; you have conquered by love. I shall 
know, what I never really doubted, that you are 
sincere and guileless if you will, without one word 
of thanks, accept the inclosed.” 

” Richy!” 

“ Yes, sir.” 

” Read it, and let us lift up our hearts to God 
and sing one grateful verse. Fifty guineas ! ” Mr. 
Sands exclaimed. 


NICKLE^S IV AY 


125 


“ And not a penny too much,” Richy softly 
added. 

“ But whatever can I do with such a hoard of 
gold?” 

“You can get yourself a new suit; you can fill 
your book-shelves with books ; you can have one 
good meat dinner in the week — ” 

“ I can make my father and my mother more 
comfortable!” 

“ So you can.” 

“ And that is what I will do ; their last days 
shall be free from care.” 

As they walked forward they saw Jacob Met- 
calfe, a stanch old Methodist of the John Morra 
type, who had a great report to make of a prayer- 
meeting in which he had taken part only the night 
before. Jacob had made himself a great local 
reputation for exclamatory power in prayer; in 
fact, it might have been reported of him that he 
had used up all the interjections, and sighed be- 
cause there were no more to use. Jacob was 
bursting to tell everybody the good news. 

“ Sam Preston and me had a grand prayer- 
meetin’ i’ wor back kitchen last neet. We went 
for the divvel, and we gav’ him a hard time on’t. 


126 


TYNE FOLK 


Sam said, 'Lord, cut the divvel’s hoff sinnons,’ * 
and ah prayed, ' Lord, smash his heid ole t’ bits,’ 
and ma weif shooted ' Amen ! ’ and ' Glory ! ’ till 
the dog barked. Ah’m sure there’s a revival 
broken oot somewhere.” 

Richy Hymers felt sure that things were on the 
mend. 

"That’s just what ah feel,” Jacob continued; 
" ah’m expectin’ to hear good news. Ah’m sure 
the divvel has had to let go o’ somebody.” 

After Jacob had got out of hearing the minis- 
ter, as before, said, as if to himself, " ' I saw Satan 
as lightning fall from heaven.’ ” Then they read 
Nickle Fairbank’s letter once more. 

" That was a very funny thing that Metcalfe 
said about the devil being obliged to let go of 
somebody, wasn’t it?” 

The minister admitted this, but with some 
caution; and no wonder he was not so sponta- 
neous and definite as Richy Hymers, for it was a 
moot point in the better circles of local society 
how far any man could have a just conception of 
the real nature of the great enemy of man who 
called him " divvel ” instead of " devil.” To 


* Hock sinews. 


NICKLE’S IV AY 


127 


educated ears there is nothing specially alarming 
about “ divvel ” ; it might be a game, a trick, or 
some local way of spending a holiday; on the 
other hand, “ devil ” is profoundly theological 
and definitely ecclesiastical, and could hardly be 
properly expressed outside an established church. 
Besides, there is a weakness about divvel ” that 
deprives it of the dignity of even a well-earned 
nickname. 

'*We should be very careful,” said Richy, 
about condemning people.” 

What do you mean, Mr. Hymers ? What is 
the application of your remark?” 

“ I was very angry with Fairbank for not giv- 
ing a suitable fee, little thinking that in the letter 
there would be a check for fifty guineas.” 

“Just so. Such an idea never entered my 
mind.” 

“ It was the very first idea that entered mine,” 
Richy frankly replied. 

“Just think, Mr. Hymers! This will pay my 
mother’s rent for years and years! But the 
money has already shrunk a little.” 

“ How?” 

“ It has gone down from guineas to pounds. I 


128 


TYNE FOLK 


have set aside fifty shillings to buy something for 
my good old landlady.” 

“Sally?” 

“ Yes. Nobody knows how good she has been 
to me, and I must do something for her. Will 
you ask Mrs. Hymers what she would advise ? ” 

“ Not a thing would Sally touch. Show her 
the letter and let her handle the check, and that 
will be all the present she will touch. I assure 
you, Sally would be sincerely grieved — downright 
heartbroken — if you offered her anything; she 
wouldn’t merely affect to be unwilling; there’s 
no affectation about Sally. She’s the sort we of 
the Tyne are proud of.” 

There was, however, an aspect of Sally of 
which her long-deceased husband was not spe- 
cially appreciative, though, being a man of quiet 
humor much accustomed to internal chuckling, 
he enjoyed some things which he could not offi- 
cially approve. Sally had quite a high notion of 
independence, under whose inspiration she set 
herself on original lines to enlarge the income of 
the family. 

“ Eh, Tommy, man,” she gleefully said to her 
husband on a never-to-be-forgotten night, “ah’ve 


MICKLE'S IV AY 


129 


had a lucky day. Thoo kens ah had eighteen- 
pence this mornin’ ; and ah bote eighteen pen’orth 
of flooer, and ah made eighteen penny pies, and 
ah’ve selled them ivvery yen ; wasn’t that tornin’ 
the penny sharp ? ” 

“ Hoo aboot the flooer? ” said Tommy. 

“ Oh,” said Sally, “ thoo kens we had the flooer 
within worsel’s.” 

Hoo aboot the labor? ” said Tommy. 

'' Hoots ! ” said Sally, “ ah didn’t meake a labor 
on’t — ah just did it for fun.” 

From his inquiries it will be seen that Tommy 
Dawson had a sordid mind, quite unlike the gen- 
erous spirit of Mike Ritson, who got his living by 
relying largely on his friends. 

Mike, what d’ye think of this grand idea of 
ivvery man having a present frae government of 
three acres and a cow ? Wadn’t that be fine, eh ? ” 

'' Hoots!” said Mike, ‘^ah divvent want their 
three yeckers ; ah wadn’t know where t’ put them ; 
but ah could teak the coo and sell her t’ somebody 
or keep her in ma uncle’s field.” 

Mike, be it frankly said, never failed to speak 
well of the providence that had given him an 
uncle. 


RALPH CULVER 


This was a friend to whose house I always 
went with special pleasure when it was my turn 
to preach in his neighborhood. His house was 
about five miles from the thriving market-town 
of Linstead, and was the central point of quite a 
considerable sheep-farm called Fishbrook, the 
name being derived from a stream which watered 
the farm from north to south. The neat little 
house, heavily slated because of tearing winds, 
stood well back in a green field. In summer- 
time we walked up to it through rows of marigolds 
and southernwood and pansies. Artistically it 
was poor gardening, but suggestively it was 
redolent of the memories which old folks like to 
cherish. Ralph was proud of the thick holly 
hedge which protected the garden on the north, 
and nothing would induce him to rearrange a little 
rough ground which lay right in the eye of the 
130 


RALPH CULVER 


131 


sun. It was some time before I knew to whom 
that minor garden once belonged. 

Ralph Culver was one of those farmers who 
cultivated Latin on a little oatmeal ; not that he 
was poor, but that Margaret, his wife, was a better 
manager than Sally Dawson. Margaret was really 
very acute, combining in the happiest degree a 
generosity which pleased the guest with an econ- 
omy which suited the resources of the host. She 
always had tasty things for Sunday’s dinner. I 
think Margaret must have had wonderful skill in 
the use of pepper and mustard and mushroom 
sauce. Returning from chapel, it was easy over 
the whole distance of the garden to detect fra- 
grances which even the pungent southernwood 
could not overcome. Who would have expected 
to dine off game in the little farm-house of the 
Fishbrook shepherd? You think it is hare you 
are eating, and possibly you are right. I do not 
say it was or it was not. How could father, 
mother, five children, and the preacher find food 
enough on one hare ? But there were surely three 
hares all mashed up in that large earthenware jug. 
No. Two of the hares — pardon me — two of the 
hares were rabbits! But they were so cut up 


132 


TYNE FOLK 


and so mashed with the one real hare, which some 
sportsman had sent in, as to be impregnated with 
all the elements which make the hare aristocratic. 
A rabbit is as good as a hare if you don’t know 
it is a rabbit. Knowledge is sometimes disap- 
pointing and vexatious. 

I have spoken of Ralph’s Latin. Some ignorant 
and jealous persons insinuated that if Ralph had 
done more with the sheep and less with the Latin 
he might have done better at Linstead market; 
but the criticism was neither clever nor just. I 
remember with what eagerness (if so slow-going 
a mind could be really eager) Ralph once asked 
me what I made of the word dinim in the second 
line of the Twelfth Ode of Horace, for he could 
make no sense of it ; and when I told him that in 
the amended text the word was not dirum but 
durum, it seemed as if a load had been taken off 
his mind or as if he had suddenly stepped out of 
darkness into sunshine. Then that slow mind went 
back to its usual pace and the old silence came 
round the man like an intangible defense. It was 
curious to watch Ralph when he thought he was 
not watched. He nearly always seemed to be 
listening for something or to be searching the 


R/iLPH CULVER 


133 


horizon for some cloud or form. He would sud- 
denly turn round and scan every bush with keen 
expectancy, and I had no idea why. 

J he would say in a minor tone, ” you 

have seen many people?” 

Yes, Mr. Culver.” 

Did you ever see two young hazel eyes with 
dreams in them? ” 

Like your own, Mr. Culver?” 

“ No, no ; mine are not young eyes. I mean 
a young girl’s eyes.” 

“ I don’t think so.” 

I want you to look for them. You cannot 
mistake the eyes I mean.” 

Where am I to look, Mr. Culver? ” 

''You are to look everywhere and always till 
you find them.” 

" Oh!” 

" Yes. When the shepherd you preach about 
went after the one sheep he had lost, the people 
seemed to say, ' When will you be back ? ’ And 
he said, ' Not until I find it’ Never come back 
without the sheep, dead or alive.” 

Ralph Culver could never talk to two people, 
but to one hearer he could talk well, especially in 


134 


TYNE FOLK 


the deepening twilight when the lonely hearer be- 
came as one of the shadows. It was dumbly felt 
all round that Ralph had a heartache. The sacred 
trouble was in that weather-beaten but serene 
and sometimes radiant face. People would say 
of him, without unkindness, that they had seen 
him going about like a lost thing,” and others 
would say, with just an accent of depreciation, 
“There goes the shepherd wool-gathering.” 
Three or four neighboring shepherds knew Ralph’s 
distress, but they never troubled him with many 
words. “ Seen or heard anything? ” they would 
say, and Ralph would answer, “ Not yet,” and 
once more all was silence. Ralph once startled 
me as I was coming up the garden path. “ Mr. 
Culver,” said I, “how dark it is!” “Yes,” he 
said ; “ dark but for thousands of galleries of con- 
stellations.” 

Ralph Culver reveled in denunciatory texts and 
discourses, and for that reason he gave me a warm 
place in his heart. My boy preaching was strong 
in thunderbolts. Others might preach the prom- 
ises: I must mount to Sinai and thunder the 
commands, and then soar to Serbal’s lonelier 
height and scatter arrows of lightning. Ralph 


RALPH CULVER 


135 


stood bolt upright when I gave out as my text, 
” It shall be more tolerable for Tyre and Sidon 
in the day of judgment than for you.” To Ralph’s 
pure, honest soul that was in very deed a sweet 
promise; it comforted the outraged father that 
was in him — father of the hazel eyes brightly dark 
and darkly bright with two uninterpreted dreams. 
On one occasion my text was, ** If I whet My 
glittering sword, and Mine hand take hold on 
judgment, I will render vengeance unto Mine 
adversaries,” and Ralph assured me that he had 
not been so much comforted since he heard me 
preach upon, ” And they shall cry unto the rocks. 
Cover us.” 

” You will never preach ony blashy slop,” said 
he. 

I hope not, Mr. Culver.” 

'' If you do see those eyes with dreams in them 
in one of the streets of Linstead you might say, 
‘ Kitty,’ as if you were speaking to yourself, and 
then watch if you see anything ; and if you do see 
anything just say, ^ Her father’s waiting,’ and then 
tell me.” 

“ When ? ” 

” Just come up at once and bring her, whoever 


136 


TYNE FOLK 


she is, and tell her that the front door is always 
open if her name is Kitty. You understand?” 

One winter evening Ralph Culver called on me 
as I was sitting in my snug little study in Linstead, 
and I think I never saw quite such a figure as the 
red fire shone upon him and the single candle 
lighted parts of his rugged face. If he had claimed 
to be John the Baptist or some wilderness-bred 
Elijah, r could hardly have doubted his identity. 

Mr. Culver! I’m glad to see you, but how do 
you happen to be here? ” 

'' I just stepped down ” (so he described a five- 
mile walk over snowy roads) ” to get a few candles, 
as I always keep a light in the window.” 

All night?” 

“ Have you forgotten already ? She may come 
back at any time.” 

Of course,” said I ; yes, of course.” 

And Kitty would know the meaning of the 
candle and it would warm her heart.” 

“ Of course,” said I, mechanically ; of course.” 

Even her mother could not set the candle 
just as I set it. I’m used to it.” 

And I repeated my poor remark. 

Kitty and I knew each other. She liked to 


RALPH CULVER 


137 


pick up a few Latin words. I told her she should 
have one of the lambs for herself if she would 
learn a new word every other day for a month, 
and she should choose the lamb herself, and the 
bigger and fatter the better. She was my pet 
lamb herself.” 

I asked my grief-laden friend to sit down, but 
he said he was not used to sitting down. I got 
my mother to make a cup of strong coffee, but 
nothing would induce him to touch it. 

” The mistress sent you this bottle of cream,” 
said he, though it’s not worth bringing so far. 
Will you walk a bit of the way back? ” 

“ Certainly.” 

When we got out he wished to walk through 
two or three streets, as it was, he said, with just 
an accent of doubtfulness in his tone, a new thing 
to see a town in candle-light. A poor night pic- 
ture did Linstead make, and poorer than ever 
when patched with drifted snow. Looking up a 
gloomy gateway, Ralph Culver said : 

I wonder what’s up there ? We might quietly 
walk up and see.” 

I would not venture if I were you,” I cau- 
tiously replied. 


138 


TYNE FOLK 


“ What for not ? That’s the sort of place where 
we might find Kitty.” 

We listened and heard sounds of uproar. A 
drunken and furious man was evidently ill-treat- 
ing a woman, for it was a woman’s voice that 
cried piteously for help. Instinctively I laid a 
hand on Ralph’s right arm, but the gentle repres- 
sion was useless, for in a moment Ralph went 
forward and forcibly entered the house. The 
drunken man fiercely, savagely demanded what 
he wanted. 

I want Kitty,” said Ralph, in a strangely 
softened tone. 

“ To the devil with Kitty ! ” the madman replied. 

Ralph took no notice of the brutal answer, but 
quietly turned to the woman and her three little 
children. It was indeed a miserable sight. The 
woman had been shamefully beaten, the starved 
children cowered in a dark corner, and broken 
furniture strewed the flagged floor. But could 
such a scene be realized in little, quiet-looking 
Linstead ? People came to Linstead for rest ; the 
surrounding country was regarded as beautiful; 
its sylvan scenery was the delight of tourists ; its 
air brought health from heaven. Could such a 


RALPH CULLER 


139 


wild beast be found within an environment so 
charming? Or is all the vaporing talk about 
environment fudge and vanity? 

If my eyes don’t deceive me,” said Ralph, 
addressing the drunken rascal, “you ought to 
know Fishbrook well.” 

The man suddenly whitened, and in frantic fury 
one of the most muscular men sprang savagely 
at Ralph ; but in a moment Ralph knocked him 
into the fireless grate, and in another moment 
dragged him out by the collar, and, having set 
the wretch on his feet, told him to defend himself, 
failing which, Ralph dealt him another tremen- 
dous blow with humiliating effect. 

“ You miserable hound ! ” said he, “ like all the 
rest of your gang, you are a bully and a coward, 
and as such I spit in your face — ” 

“O Mr. Culver!” I pleaded. 

“ And I crush your nose ; and I will not leave 
until you apologize to this woman.” But on turn- 
ing round he found that the woman and her chil- 
dren had gone. 

“ No wonder they are gone,” said Ralph ; “ and 
now that we are only men,” he continued, “ I 
will tell you what I am going to do. Look at me, 


140 


TYNE FOLK 


you villain! I am going to strip every rag off 
your back and kick you out into the snow.” 

*'0 Mr. Culver!” was all I could think of to 
say. 

“ Be quiet,” he gently said to me. “ I am not 
fool enough to lose my temper. I am in cold 
blood, and what I say I will do.” 

‘‘But why, Mr. Culver?” 

“ I will tell you why,” he said, going to the 
door to prevent escape. “ When I told this wild 
beast that I wanted Kitty, what answer did he 
make me? His words are burning in me. For 
those words I will tear every rag off.” 

“ But he did not mean your Kitty, Mr. Culver.” 

“ Perhaps not, but he meant some father’s 
Kitty.” 

“ I didn’t,” moaned the now sobered and cow- 
ering wretch. 

“Then take back your words, you hound!” 

“ I do take them back.” 

“Tell me you are sorry you ever mentioned 
the name of Kitty.” 

“ I am sorry.” A more pitiable-looking crea- 
ture cannot be imagined. 

Ralph was under great excitement for several 


RALPH CULVER 


141 


minutes after we left the gateway. To himself 
rather than to me he said quite pantingly and 
brokenly, “ Kitty, ... she may be in the same 
condition ; ... it might have been Kitty. . . . 
I wonder where the woman and her children went 
to, . . . ” and the rest was a sigh from the heart. 

The snow fell thickly when we parted, and 
greatly was I distressed as I saw the simple- 
minded, fearless, noble shepherd take his way to 
lonely Fishbrook with the little lights for nightly 
use in the cottage window. Why should this blow 
have fallen on such a man ? He did not provoke 
it; we could not see that he deserved it; we sor- 
rowed with all his bitter grief. Why should his 
sweet and cherished Kitty have been taken away, 
led captive by the devil at his will ? When Kitty 
was lost the whole farm lost its verdure and the 
very bleating of the sheep was a voice of horrible 
entreaty and unexplained distress. As I returned 
to my study I stood a moment at the gateway 
and saw the woman and her children looking into 
the window of their wretched home. Amid the 
cold silence of the snowfall I advanced toward 
them and thrust something into the hand of one 
of the children. It was the action of a moment ; 


142 


TYNE FOLK 


yet in that moment the ill-clad, shivering mother 
recognized me. 

Is my husband sober now? ” she tremblingly 
inquired. 

“Yes; I feel sure he is.” 

“ You wouldn’t know him,” said she, “ when 
he is sober, he is such a different man ; he loves 
us when he is sober, but when the drink is in him 
he is neither to hold nor to bind. You may be- 
lieve me, I assure you.” 

Divine woman! All-forgiving woman 1 I could 
not wholly believe her, nor could I wholly disbe- 
lieve her, but my heart went out to her. 

“Who did the man ask about?” she timidly 
inquired. 

“ About his daughter Kitty, who has mysteri- 
ously disappeared.” 

“ Has he ever sought for her at Westfield? ” 

“ I don’t know.” 

Then the woman and her children left me, and 
left me bewildered. 

In a few days I had such a fright as I had 
never known before. When my mother told me, 
on my return from a walk, that John Morra was 


RALPH CULVER 


143 


waiting for me, I literally felt myself turning as 
white as the snow which lay on the surrounding 
roofs, and felt also, though most unaccountably, 
that I was somehow detected in some horribly 
guilty act which the risen dead had come to 
avenge. Appearances would certainly have con- 
demned me. 

“ Mother ! ” I exclaimed in a ghostly whisper, 
‘‘John Morra is dead.” 

“ Dead or alive,” said she, “ John Morra is up- 
stairs.” 

I looked upstairs, but did not stir. I suppose 
I was a coward, yet so bigly human I thought all 
the world would commend my timidity. I, who 
believe in spirits, shrank from a reincarnated soul ! 
I, a preacher and a man who believed in prayer, 
a man who spoke in borrowed poetry of spirits 
“ revisiting the glimpses of the moon,” did not 
dare advance to greet a face that had seen the 
glory of invisible worlds! Rhetoric, wantonly 
vain, always outruns intelligent conviction. What 
did I do? How can I put on paper what I did? 
In a word, I shouted, “John,” and quickly ran to 
my mother’s side I Homo sum! If I had gone 
forward I might have stood well in my own es- 


144 


TYNE FOLK 


teem. But I only shouted, and down came a 
young man who claimed to be the son of the 
famous farmer-preacher — the junior John, the 
very breathing image of his honest father! How 
lion-like was then my courage! I resumed my 
religion and thought comfortably about the super- 
natural. There was no mistaking junior John, for 
he was even burrrier and thrroatier than his father, 
and he seemed fated to choose only such words 
as brought into special prominence the fatal r. 

” Ah’ve returned from Westfield, and a farmer 
there requested me to remember him t’ ye.” 

“ What was his name ? ” 

“ His name is Hugh Oxley, born at Horsefield, 
right over yonder.” 

Junior John would have gone, but I detained 
him a moment : 

“ Are you a preacher, like your father? ” 

Yes.” 

Do you preach much ? ” 

Yes, a goodish bit, but never twice in the same 
place.” 

How’s that? ” 

'' They say ah preach ower their heids and they 
dinna understand me,” 


RALPH CULVER 


145 


Here was evolution with a vengeance. Old 
John was understood by everybody and young 
John was understood by nobody. This is progress. 
Surely he must be a poor preacher who can be 
comprehended. As to eminence and fame, where 
would Browning be if his meailing could be caught 
at once? Where would the Atlantic be if you 
could wade in it? 

Oh, by the way, did you hear the fisherman- 
preacher at Westfield? ” 

‘‘Yes.” 

“ Is he a very good preacher? ” 

“ Yes.” 

“ Did you see anybody at Westfield of the name 
of Kitty? ” 

“ No.” 

John would have been understood in a witness- 
box, if not in a pulpit. When the interview ended 
I returned to my maternal parent, and — will any- 
body believe it ? — that sweet antiquity had a laugh 
in both eyes. This was not creditable to human 
nature ; how much less to the maternal bosom ! 
It was a silent criticism on my courageous shout 
and my instant retirement to a mother’s protec- 
tion. The circumstance, simple though it was, 


146 


TYNE FOLK 


altered the relation between parent and child : the 
child was a good deal subdued; the child was 
lower in stature. 

Connected with my story was a visit paid by 
Matthew Cook, a good man who always owed 
somebody fifty pounds and always astounded 
everybody by his remarkable gift of extempora- 
neous prayer. Matthew was so strongly conscious 
of this genius that, if he heard any lay preacher 
whose ministrations were much praised, he would 
quietly say, “ He preaches not se badly, but ah 
could pray the shirt off his back, the dorty body, 
ony day.” Matthew did not always speak in the 
vernacular, for he had a pulpit style of which he 
was proud, and which served him well when he 
wanted to pay off one creditor by seeking the 
good offices of another. Like others, not to be 
publicly named, Matthew strongly disliked the 
word ” borrowing.” He always described himself 
as in need of “ temporary accommodation.” That 
expression invested his position with distinct 
gentility. When he borrowed one fifty pound to 
pay off another Matthew described himself as 
being ” in smooth water,” and treated himself to 


RALPH CULVER 


147 


strong coffee and two penny pies sold by a neigh- 
boring baker. The pies were mutton, and the 
tasty gravy rushed out on the very first bite. 
Matthew has been known — but for this I have 
only the authority of the baker — to have a third 
pie, making his pie account threepence. As a 
boy, I felt I could have eaten thirty penny pies 
of Dolly Simpson’s baking (I did not taste one of 
Sally Dawson’s eighteen) and then have longed 
for just two more ; so I was not one of those who 
marveled at Matthew’s occasional three. It was 
thought by some base persons that Matthew took 
up eagerly with lay preaching because it brought 
him into friendly relations with many little savory 
suppers ; but this was to degrade him to the level 
of Friar Tuck, and put an unnecessary strain on 
the confidence of his friends. Ah me, there are 
no such pies now! Dolly Simpson is dead as 
well as Benjamin Franklin. I still see the same- 
looking pies — base pretenders! — in some win- 
dows in the back streets of London, but they do 
not make my mouth water. They are not Dolly’s 
handiwork. 

“ I was at Fishbrook last Sunday morning,” 
said Matthew. 


148 


TYNE FOLK 


Well, what news ? 

“ I am concerned about Culver; there is such 
a change in him.” 

How?” 

“ Every way. He is so restless and so easily 
excited; and tears are in his eyes.” 

“ Fine eyes, are they not? ” said I. 

“ Mrs. Culver is very anxious about him. What 
is the real trouble?” 

I suppose he is the only man who can give 
an explanation.” 

Do you suspect anything yourself? ” 

No. If I did suspect anything, what good 
would it be? That is the way mischief is done, 
by raising all kinds of ridiculous and groundless 
reports.” 

Just so; yet one can hardly help speculating 
in such a case.” 

What did you see with your own eyes? ” 

''Well, I noticed two things. I noticed his 
restlessness and his muttering.” 

" Muttering? ” 

"Yes. As we walked from the service he 
muttered all the way.” 

" What did he say ? ” 


RALPH CULLER 


149 


He said something about a man and woman 
and something about fighting.” ^ 

” Oh! Did he mention the name? ” 

“Yes. I understood the woman’s name was 
Kitty, and the man’s was Kit.” 

“ And the fighting? ” 

“ He didn’t explain, and I did not like to ask 
any pressing questions.” 

“ Did you mention anything to Mrs. Culver 
about the fighting?” 

“No; his recollection was all confused. He 
walked like a bent old man.” 

“ Did he say anything about your sermon? ” 

“ I don’t believe he heard a word of it; he cer- 
tainly said nothing.” 

“ Very sad.” 

“Oh! I forgot; there’s another thing. He 
wants his bed brought downstairs, because, he 
says, he would then be nearer if anything should 
happen, though what can happen at Fishbrook 
one cannot imagine.” 

Happen at Fishbrook — the hamlet, the village, 
the wee house on the hill ! Why, everything can 
happen there, and men do not know it. There 
hearts are broken ; young love sings its first song ; 


150 


TYNE FOLK 


old death plucks ripe fruit ; tragedy quaffs invisi- 
ble blood. You drive past the white cottage 
swathed in roses, and call it the nest of peace, 
not knowing that jealousy burns there in quench- 
less flames and hungry greed covets the larger 
field and summer-house beyond. So much, as 
already hinted, has environment done for some 
men ! When did it forgive enemies, subdue lust, 
stimulate benevolence? When did it render the 
New Testament superfluous? When did it con- 
nect earth with heaven? Wherever there is^one 
human heart things are happening.” Certainly 
they were happening fast enough at Fishbrook. 
Ralph Culver’s heart was a city of tumult in which 
he saw and heard strange things. The cross lights, 
the incessant uproar, the troubled river carrying 
its cargo of misery to the sea, the unwomanly 
women, the monster men, were but too familiar to 
one crushed heart at little Fishbrook. Yet Mat- 
thew Cook thought that Ralph Culver was a 
peasant without a care, with nothing to do but to 
drink and enjoy the poetry of the hills! So I 
moralized and so I dreamed. 

If John Morra’s visit surprised me, I was in a 
way perhaps more surprised by a call from Harry 
Neave, a name I had never heard until my mothef 


RALPH CULVER 


151 


mentioned it. The man had called in the after- 
noon, and, not finding me at home, he promised 
to call in the evening. Harry Neave,” I said. 
” I don't know him. I never heard of him. Who 
is he?” My mother did not know. What was 
he like? She took no notice of him. Was he a 
clergyman or a policeman? She did not know. 
Was it Ralph Culver from Fishbrook? She had 
only seen Ralph in the dark and would not pledge 
herself. The evening was a long time in coming, 
but with it came Harry Neave, the wife-beater, 
whose acquaintance we had made on the snowy 
night of Ralph's visit. At once I expected trouble 
and greatly longed for Ralph's arm of iron. But 
I was wrong. The man's tone was very subdued 
and civil. 

I want to see you about that disturbance,” 
he quietly said. 

‘^Well?” 

My wife has been talking to me about it and 
I want to explain.” 

Harry Neave paused and looked at me intently. 

“Well?” 

“ Something was said about Kitty ; I remember 
that clearly.” 

“Yes?’^ 


152 


TYNE FOLK 


I didn’t take the word in the right way, I 
find.” 

” How could you possibly mistake it? ” 

“ I don’t know whether you belong to Linstead, 
but I want to tell you that the word ‘ kitty ’ means 
the lock-up, and I thought he meant to take me 
there.” 

I knew he was right about the local meaning 
of the word. 

''You did not know that somebody belonging 
to him was called Kitty? ” 

" I did not. I was drunk, and did not know 
what I was saying.” 

" I wonder that a man like you should ever get 
drunk.” 

" And well you may, for I am ashamed of my- 
self and disgraced.” 

"Then why do you do it?” 

" Why, indeed. But I’m a working-man, and 
every night in coming from my work I have to 
pass three hells — •” 

"What?” 

" Three public houses ; and sometimes my reso- 
lution breaks down. The first glass gets me 
ready for the next, and so on and so on. I want 


RALPH CULVER 


153 


you to tell the man what I meant, for I never 
meant to hurt his feelings.” 

This confirmed what Mrs. Neave had told me. 
The man’s manner was not destitute even of some 
sign of fine breeding, particularly in the form of 
his mouth and the quality of his voice. Surely 
this was not the man who had beaten his wife and 
scared his children, and literally smashed his home 
to pieces. What was it that drove him mad? He 
has told us ; it was the body- and soul-destroying 
drink. Driven by that demon, the wretch was 
powerless ; as for his resolution, it was as a with- 
ered leaf before an angry wind. I love my 
wife,” said he, but when the drink” (the old, 
old story ! ) — “ when the drink — ” Yet preachers 
take it, and professors, and church-goers, and 
eldest sons, and — women ! Yes, women, the very 
sweetest and choicest of the creatures of God. 
There was one poor woman — poor, though rich 
in gold — who would secretly rise in the darkest 
hours and drain the brandy flask when she little 
thought any eye witnessed her weakness and her 
shame; but her eight-year-old girl saw her one 
night, — they were alone together in the bed-cham- 
ber, — and the young witness solemnly said. 


154 


TYNE FOLK 


Mother, you are a drunkard and you killed my 
dear papa.” The arrow pierced the heart; it was 
a heaven-directed stroke, for the poor woman 
returned from the chambers of death and spent 
her remaining days in bitterest penitence. I may 
be blamed for moralizing, yet I cannot forbear. 
When in every house there is one slain soul, when 
the village cemetery is filled with the bones of 
drunkards, when every asylum and refuge and 
poorhouse is filled because of drink, a moment’s 
moralizing may be at least excused. 

Many weeks passed before I saw dear Ralph 
Culver, and when I did see him my heart sank 
within me. My loved hero now a bent old man, 
with vacant eyes and a memory that staggered as 
to all recent events! Some terrific force had 
shattered a strong tower; perhaps I should say 
that some secret poison had withered a sturdy 
oak. For the living expectation that used to 
make his eyes gleam there was now a look of 
dread, a living, shuddering fear. The chilling 
expression was that of a man who expected that 
the very ground under his feet might give way, 
or that of a man who saw something that no one 
else saw. It was just the old look turned right 


RALPH CULVER 


155 


round. The leader was now the follower; the 
man who strode ahead of all others now crouched 
behind and mutely appealed for protection. Oh, 
how sad it was ! A woman seems to have a right 
to cry, whereas for a man to shed tears is a crime 
against dignity, and would have been had not 
“Jesus wept.” His babe-name is always Won- 
derful ; His very tears drop from the eyes of Om- 
nipotence. Ralph Culver wept, but so softly! — 
a heart-dew that made no noise. These pent-up 
tears would kill us were not the reservoir pierced. 
Duller eyes than mine could have seen that Ralph’s 
grief was very great and that silence alone could 
fitly speak to it. But we spoke with our hands. 
There was masonic meaning in our grip. We 
walked round and round the garden and looked 
wistfully at the little untended plot that lay right 
in the eye of the sun. A shaggy collie, brown- 
black, with sad yellow eyes, kept steadily by 
Ralph’s side, as if carrying part of the speechless 
grief. Ralph would draw me closer and closer, 
and reluctantly glance over his shoulder, and the 
glance would become a shudder. He loved 
me for my silence. To him the silence was 
eloquent. 

“ Take this,” said he, “ and keep it where no- 


156 


TYNE FOLK 


body can see it. It is my buried heart. When 
the night-time comes you can do what you like 
with it. I give it to you to be always yours be- 
cause I love you.” 

This reads fluently enough, and on paper it is 
nothing but a sentence; in the saying it took a 
long time and required much hard breathing. 
When I left my old friend I felt as if we had 
buried each other. No formal good-by was 
spoken. There was only a sinking of heart. 

The little book which Ralph handed to me 
turned out to be a diary kept by his own hand. 
In the substance of the record I have made no 
change, and even as to its form I have mainly 
rectified the punctuation and set some of the sen- 
tences in clearer order. I wish I could give a 
facsimile of the penmanship, for it is quite a reve- 
lation of Ralph’s varying moods, if, indeed, there 
could be any variation in a tone of monotonous 
disappointment and dejection. 

“ My bairn, my Kitty, has run away. O 
God! . . . 

'' Nothing heard of my Kitty. Perhaps she’s 
only getting up a surprise for her mother and me. 
I cannot believe my Kitty has done anything 


RALPH CULVER 


157 


wrong. I sometimes look behind the door to see 
if she is not standing there beside the skeel o’ 
water. O God! . . . 

Six weeks gone, and no Kitty ; no news. I 
thought she was hiding among the trees in the 
little garden. I have even searched among the 
runts in the cabbage- field, for I thought she might 
have fallen down in a faint and died alone. Oh, 
if she had died I could have been happy ; at least, 
I would be happy now. Perhaps she is cold and 
hungry. Perhaps she thinks she would not be 
welcome if she came back. Perhaps her shame 
keeps her. . . . 

“ Snack, my beautiful collie, has been whining 
round me for several days as if he wanted to say 
something. I am sure he is unhappy about Kitty. 
They were always playfellows. He used to run 
across a whole field when he saw her red cloak 
at the gate. I believe Snack knew just when she 
would come from school. He thinks he could 
find her. God bless the dog ! . . . 

I went out at four o’clock this morning, the 
sky was so large and kind and seemed to want to 
make everybody happy. I wish people could 
come to Fishbrook and for once in their lives see 


158 


TYNE FOLK 


the rising sun. Another weary month, and no 
Kitty; no letter. I wonder if the letter-carrier 
is to blame ? I have heard of tricks being played 
with letters and people being separated who loved 
each other. Kitty may have sent for her father 
and the letter may have been lost. Such things 
have happened, I know. . . . 

“ I would cut off my right hand if that would 
bring Kitty back. No news. Snack has run 
away. I do believe the poor dumb beast has 
gone to seek her. I have seen him go to many 
a bush and search it thoroughly. Oh, how 
we all miss her! The very fields seem to know 
that she has gone. I was in the Wardrow Hollow 
this morning, and I cried and moaned so much 
that the very sheep looked up with a kind of 
pitying wonder in their peaceful eyes. Oh, if 
she had only come to me then I . . . 

Six more weeks gone. I am ill. Poor Mar- 
garet, I can see, is broken down. Poor soul, she 
tries to look cheerful for my sake. She knows 
that if she was to break down I should lose my 
balance ; so she fights the battle to save me. God 
of pity, hear us!” 

Yes, Ralph was ill. Sorrow had consumed the 


RALPH CULVER 


159 


strong man’s strength. And in that day Margaret 
was as a woman sent from God. Ralph did not 
know her, nor did he know his loving children. He 
never, strange as it may seem, forgot to light the 
nightly candle — such is the force of habit, or duty, 
or love, or God. The young woman who waited 
upon him while Margaret tended the farm was a 
stranger to Ralph ; yet, though he knew her not, 
he was restful under her gentle care; yet even 
she was not permitted to set the guiding candle 
in the window. That office kept Ralph out of his 
grave. The action meant, “ I must live and I 
must do this, or Kitty would never find her way 
home.” But Kitty’s name he never mentioned. 
To whom could he mention it? Not to his 
wife, for it would have cut her heart as with a 
sword; not to the children, for they could not, 
thank God, understand a story of shame; and 
not to this waiting-girl, for she did not know of 
Kitty’s existence. By its very secrecy his sor- 
row became a most hallowed joy. The poor 
mind wavered and stumbled, and the vacant 
eyes saw nothing as it really was. So the weeks 
went by and so the candle glimmered in the 
window. At Mrs. Culver’s request, I went to 


160 


TYNE FOLK 


Fishbrook to see my friend and to study his 
case. There was nothing to note but sadness. 
The only sign of intelligent interest was in his 
watching the kindly nurse. He missed her at 
once, and settled into rest when she returned. I 
thought it right to read a passage or two out of 
the diary to Mrs. Culver. The references to 
Snack touched her even more than the references 
to Kitty. She told me that Snack had returned 
in a very despondent state, and had been strictly 
kept out of his master’s way for fear the sympathy 
and the excitement should be too much for his 
frail condition. I told Mrs. Culver that I would 
like to take the nurse’s place for a day or two, 
and told her why. She assured me that no one 
but myself would be allowed to displace her, and 
she thought herself, after we exchanged confi- 
dences, that perhaps I was right. One thing only 
was stipulated, and that was that the nurse should 
remain on the premises in the event of Ralph in- 
quiring for her. I am thankful to say that my 
visit had a happy effect. I took my own way of 
treating the case, and Ralph responded as I wished. 
I thought it right at the end of three days to 
boldly and energetically mention the name of 


RALPH CULyPR 


161 


Kitty as the only word likely to penetrate the 
cloud that rested on his mind. He fixed upon 
me a darting glance and rose to his feet. I saw 
that he was recoverable. We sat in silence for 
five minutes, and then the comforting tears came, 
and by that sign I knew that heaven was on our 
side. In three days more the whole position was 
changed for the better. Meanwhile Mrs. Culver 
and I had considered many plans, but, to my 
horror, my confidence in her received a severe 
shock. She had gone over the whole story with 
the nurse, and had even allowed her to peruse the 
sacred diary. Oh, the madness ! oh, the wisdom ! 
That perusal saved many words and opened up 
new possibilities. I myself talked freely with the 
nurse, whose sweet manners charmed me exceed- 
ingly. She spoke the softest Northumbrian I 
had ever heard, unmistakable Northumbrian, but 
so subdued, so rich. It warmed my heart to 
hear the familiar cadence, and made me proud of 
the Northumberland that was once a kingdom. 
How sweetly and heartily she entered into all 
our plans about Mr. and Mrs. Culver ! She opened 
her warm young heart to me, and I was ravished 
by the rippling music of her voice. I loved her 


162 


TYNE FOLK 


there and then, and could have married her on 
the spot We walked to Wardrow Hollow and 
sat down, without any intention of ever leaving 
the new paradise. I did not touch her hand, but 
I looked at it — quite a wonderful hand for a peas- 
ant woman, white, shapely, and well trimmed. I 
expected her hand would have been red and that 
rough work would have left its trace on every 
finger. It was a lady’s hand. A sudden action 
on her part alarmed me, yet a very natural action, 
considering that she knew all about Ralph Culver’s 
experience in that solitary place: she dried the 
streaming tears from her eyes and bowed down 
her head as one who secretly prays. 

'‘Down, dog!” I shouted, as Snack suddenly 
sprang upon her with great force. My shouting 
did not stop him. He rolled her over, he licked 
her face, he whined, he wept, and as suddenly 
fled away. Snack had come upon us quite un- 
expectedly. His frantic joy could not be sup- 
pressed. Like the wind he flew back to the 
shepherd’s house, and we were right glad to be 
rid of him, though he was a beast to be proud of. 
He would be a clever man who could exactly say 
>vhat dogs cannot do in the way of making their 


RALPH CULVER 


163 


will known to their masters. I was sure Snack 
had gone to bring some one to Wardrow Hollow, 
and if so a crLsis was impending. Our time for 
talking was therefore drawing to an end. 

I am a married woman ; I was determined not 
to come back until I was married.” 

” You amaze me,” said I, “and you miserably 
disappoint me.” 

“ How?” 

“ Ah, that is another question, and you have 
closed it forever.” 

“ Father will get better from the moment he 
knows I am married.” 

“ Do you think he knew you in his illness as 
you nursed him? ” 

“ No; but he had strange feelings and he gave 
me strange looks.” 

“ As if he suspected ? ” 

“ Something of that sort. My mother has told 
me all you have been to him, so I can talk to you. 
One night I asked him to let me light the candle 
for him, and he said, ' What, let anybody on earth 
light Kitty's candle?’ and, turning on me while 
I looked the other way, he said, ' You are nearly 
Kitty’s size and make, so I like you to be about 


164 


TYNE FOLK 


the place.’ He is better now, and has been since 
you came, so I kept out of the way.” 

“ I can tell you, his heart is as true as steel ; 
it is! ” said I. 

Tears rained out of poor Kitty’s eyes. “ I know 
it all,” said she; he is too good. I feel as if I 
had murdered him. . . . He should have made 
me do more work ; ... it was always ^ Kitty, 
Kitty, Kitty.’ . . . When he would not let me 
light the candle he didn’t know how like his very 
own self he was; ... he would never let me 
do any rough work, even to help mother. . . . 
Somebody else had to scour the steps and fetch 
the water and brush the shoes. . . .” 

I heard Snack in the distance, and on looking 
over the little slope on which we sat I saw Ralph 
and Margaret walking very slowly. 

"‘You must all be alone,” said I; so I made 
haste to disappear. 

“ If anything could happen at so small a place 
as Fishbrook!” So I mused in going down the 
hill to Linstead, the thronged metropolis of the 
district — tumultuously thronged if six people 
were seen in its streets at any one time. It was 


RALPH CULVER 


165 


quite to be expected that all kinds of horrible 
things might at any moment take place in so large 
and unmanageable a place as Linstead, for the 
population could hardly number less than three 
thousand ; but how was it possible that anything 
could occur at Fishbrook, too small to be even a 
hamlet ? This must be put among the unanswered 
questions of history. I walked and mused and 
wondered. A dream had passed through my 
fancy like a gleam of summer lightning; yes, it 
was delightful, almost celestial, but alas! she — 
what need of substantive? — she was a married 
woman ! There are mocking dreams, colored lies, 
lime-light promises.’ I was disillusioned. At the 
last point on the winding road from which I could 
see Culver’s cottage I halted, without knowing 
why. It became quite a center of history : the 
spoiled child had left it, the broken-hearted child 
had returned to it ; insanity had peered through 
its small-paned windows ; death had thrown a roof 
of darkness over its ponderous roof of slag; and 
now the happier age was dawning. The nightly 
candle would be needed no longer; there is a 
place where there is no need even of the sun! 
Love is light ; God is love. Great waves of ele- 


166 


TYNE FOLK 


vating emotion passed through my heart. How 
well I would preach when it was my turn to go 
back to Fishbrook! But the text must not be 
taken from the parable of the prodigal son, for 
healing wounds must not be torn open. Nor 
must I preach about the shepherd who found his 
sheep, for wildernesses that have been passed 
must not be turned into pulpit paint. What, 
then, could I preach about? God would provide 
Himself with a text, and in His hands I would 
leave the choice. I then kissed my hand toward 
the shepherd’s cot, and waved the kissed fingers 
in dumb adieu. 

Little did I think I had been watched — perhaps 
“ seen ” would be a better word than watched,” 
for there was no design in the observance. Nickle 
Fairbank confronted me when I turned from the 
gate on which I had been leaning. It was never 
easy to talk to Nickle Fairbank when Nickle him- 
self was disinclined to talk. He could be as dour 
a dog as ever glanced out of a kennel. At this 
moment Nickle seemed to be longing to talk to 
somebody. 

” How’s Culver?” said he, without asking me 
where I had been. 


R/tLPH CULLER 


167 


Better,” I replied, but he has been very 
seriously ill.” 

So Kitty was telling us the night before last,” 
said the genial Nickle. 

But how did he come to use the familiar name 
of Kitty ? Was it not dangerous for Kitty to put 
herself in the way of such a man ? 

” I have good news for the old folks,” Nickle 
continued ; you had better go back and hear it, 
for Kitty says you are a wonderful favorite with 
the old shepherd. The fact is, the whole thing 
should have been differently managed.” 

“What whole thing?” said I. “You must 
explain.” 

“ Don’t you know that Kitty is a married 
woman? ” 

“Yes.” 

“ Who told you ? ” 

“ Kitty herself told me she was married ; that’s 
all I know.” 

“ Have you no suspicion of her husband’s name 
and family? ” 

“ Not the least.” 

“ Did you ever hear the name of my eldest son, 
Darley Fairbank?” 


168 


TYNE FOLK 


Many a time.” 

Well, Kitty Culver and Darley Fairbank are 
man and wife.” 

How extraordinary ! Why, however did they 
come to know one another?” 

''Aye, how, indeed,” said Nickle. "But that 
has been a mystery ever since the world began. 
The fact is, though you must never let on to him. 
Culver over- educated the girl, kept her far too 
long at school, and put fine notions into her young 
head.” 

I now remember Kitty’s superior way of saying 
some words. 

" It is a horrible thing to say, and I don’t like 
to say it,” Nickle continued; "but he gave her 
so much schooling that she didn’t like to hear his 
broad Northumbrian ; the pawky little body quite 
got the notion that she was of a superior breed.” 

" Hateful!” said I. 

" Yes ; but Culver was not free from blame. Of 
course he did it all for the best, but, you see, it 
won’t do. He should have given her less or he 
should have given her more. Darley had the best 
schooling the neighborhood could give him, and 
I believe his ear is very keen about grammar.” 


RALPH CULVER 


Keen about grammar and blunt about morals. 
But I was silent. 

“ He’s a very fine fellow, and I hope Kitty will 
make him happy.” 

Better make him good ; better make him just. 
But I was silent. 

“ Poor Culver went with very shabby clothes 
that he might buy her fine dresses, and I suppose 
her young head was turned. Darley is a common- 
sense young fellow, and in time he will mold her.” 

I held my tongue as with a bridle when it was 
all '' Darley, Darley, Darley.” 

You had better go back with me and see how 
happy the old folks will be. Darley will be here 
when I give him a sign. I’ve told you I know 
all about Culver’s regard for you, and it might 
make things pleasanter and easier all round if 
you were there.” 

But this was not my view, so I declined. 
Moreover, Nickle’s way of talking about the 
whole matter was not agreeable to me. He 
talked like a man who was doing a great favor 
rather than repairing a great wrong; as if he, 
the well-to-do Fairbank, was giving the shep- 
herd Culver a great lift in life and working quite 


170 


TYNE FOLK 


a miracle in condescension. This snobbishness 
was born in the Fairbank bone, and it tainted 
even the new righteousness with which we were 
anxious to credit Nickle since his own marriage. 
It was not in the power of common arithmetic to 
measure the exact distance which intervened, in 
the providence of God, between a Fairbank and 
a Culver. 

Darley Fairbank was the dandy of Linstead. 
Some people said he wore stays, but this was 
generally regarded as a silly and spiteful re- 
mark. Darley was, no doubt, a swaggering 
young fellow, fond of gold-headed canes and 
eye-glasses, and equally fond of characterizing 
all who differed from him in politics as knaves 
and numskulls. What his father once was in 
theology, a soul having special familiarity with 
the purposes of the Eternal, Darley was in poli- 
tics, knowing the difference in knavery between 
one prime minister and another to the very sub- 
tlest of moral shades. But that was a very differ- 
ent thing from wearing stays and aping feminine 
graces. It is only just to Darley to say that he 
never brought any discredit on religion, for re- 


RALPH CULVER 


171 


ligion was the one luxury he had arranged to 
dispense with. It is, however, as a fast-growing 
boy that I now regard him. He was the only 
boy of our class in Linstead who ever went to a 
boarding-school. That gave him a proud dis- 
tinction ; in fact, it invested him with a kind of 
awe. Most of us had gone to a penny-a-week 
school, kept by a veritable Squeers, a shining 
light among the militant dissenters, almost a pre- 
scriptive member of every deputation appointed 
to inquire into the fitness of young candidates 
for church-membership. May the shadows that 
rest upon his unholy memory deepen into eter- 
nal darkness! Barley Fairbank never went to 
that school. When it was definitely ascertained 
that Barley was actually going to a boarding- 
school, it became a question among the boys 
whether they dare speak to one who was leav- 
ing them in utter obscurity, an obscurity, indeed, 
amounting to a kind of negative disgrace. They 
were still further separated from him by a mys- 
tic dread when they heard that the rules of the 
olympian school (note the small o in “ olympian ") 
required the scholars to take with them two 
spoons, two forks, and two serviettes. The ex- 


172 


TYNE FOLK 


citement became so intense that when Bob Wil- 
kins, a mean boy with no roof to his mouth, said 
that two pillow-cases were also required, Ned 
Scott knocked him down and I stood on him. 
This we felt morally bound to do, as a protest 
against extreme falsehood. When we afterward 
found out that Bob was not so very far out of his 
reckoning, we canceled our first error by allow- 
ing him to fish with us the next Saturday, on con- 
dition that he would pay for such penny pies as 
we might require for luncheon. Bob was a mild 
boy, and of great reputation in Squeers’s Sun- 
day class, and therefore he assented. All this 
did not prevent Darley from going to the board- 
ing-school ; nor did it prevent those who were 
left behind feeling sure that Darley had entered 
on a career which would end in the British Mu- 
seum or in Westminster Abbey. Our parents 
quoted him as an example. I regret to say that 
the Westminster Abbey idea had to be aban- 
doned ; for during his very first return from the 
boarding-school Darley said the word '' damn ” 
as if he were used to it, and this not only shook 
our confidence, but destroyed it. We squirmed 
when we heard the shocking word, though we 


RALPH CULVER 


173 


felt (what we soon learned to doubt) that it gave 
Darley a kind of firmness and a claim to some 
position in general society. Ned Scott told me 
that he himself tried the word in private to his 
cost ; for in the very act of saying it (rhetorically, 
not profanely, and with a strict view to empha- 
sis) his father caught him “ a cloot i’ the lug ” * 
that knocked him under the bed. In these days 
Northumbrians took strong measures on behalf 
of personal morality, but Nickle Fairbank was 
not of those who supported the ten command- 
ments by physical persuasions. Little by little 
Darley showed how the boarding-school had 
assisted in the growth of manhood, one of the 
most striking proofs being that he not only 
carried cigarettes and matches in his pocket, but 
that he had perfect skill in getting a light by 
rubbing a match on the upper part of his trousers. 
This impressed us perhaps more than anything, 
and led to a rush on the local match market. 
The thing was quite novel, and, indeed, so fas- 
cinating that we were pleased when a laboring 
man asked, at the same time holding out a black 
cutty-pipe, whether we could give him a 'Meet.” f 

t Light. 


* A box on the ear. 


174 


TYNE FOLK 


How Darley Fairbank got hold of so many ob- 
vious accomplishments we could not make out, 
for it was well known in Linstead that the mas- 
ter of the boarding-school was an inoffensive 
clergyman with a marked capacity for acquiring 
knowledge, and a still more marked incapacity 
for imparting it to others, and that his one su- 
preme virtue lay in his sending in his quarterly 
bill with painful punctuality. 

When Darley Fairbank finally returned to 
Linstead he declared himself to be an out-and- 
out agnostic, which was undoubtedly true from 
an educational point of view, and probably true 
also as to religious questions. Real agnostics 
would have been ashamed of their disciple, and 
truly religious minds would be thankful not to 
be degraded by his companionship. But he was 
a fine fellow ” ; so, at least, his father said ; a 
dashing fellow, a fellow with quite a military 
air,” and, in his father’s opinion, “a fellow of 
whom any girl might be proud.” The Linstead 
boys, however, were not proud of him. One of 
them (of the same rude gang that shouted at his 
father in the Unicorn ” case) called out as Dar- 
ley swaggered along: 


RALPH CULVER 


175 


Hi, canny man, your mother wants her 
stays,” and this at the very time that Barley was 
on his way to demolish the Independent minis- 
ter’s belief in the supernatural and “ the circum- 
ambient invisible.” This was the Barley Fair- 
bank under whose ''military” spell Kitty Culver 
had fallen. A neighboring shepherd had once 
looked at Kitty with covetous eyes, but, dis- 
covering one Sunday afternoon that Kitty was 
walking with what he called " a dandy buck,” he 
fell into the deepest dejection, though he had 
spent eighteenpence on a new muffler, yellow 
with black spots, which he thought would have 
impressed any girl. Thus, without knowing it, 
Kitty had led Billy into foolish extravagance, 
and had tempted him to a pinnacle in the temple 
of expectation, from which he had thrown him- 
self down when the angel was absent. And 
Barley won the day. Boots like his, clothes like 
his, an onyx ring like his — how could they fail? 
If Eve gave way before a rosy-cheeked apple, 
how could her daughter Kitty stand before a 
fashionable coat? Besides all this, which ought 
not to go for more than it is worth. Barley 
smoked. Barley said '' damn,” and Barley was 


176 


TYNE FOLK 


an agnostic. The first thing Kitty gave up was 
her hymn-book, on Barley’s suggestion. Then 
she gave up the little chapel. Then she broke 
her father’s heart. But Barley was a fine fellow, 
an up-to-date fellow, a fellow with a military air. 

Barley’s more or less unconscious influence 
was not for good, as many decent families in the 
town could testify. We know what a magnet 
does when it is brought within a certain distance 
of a heap of steel filings. That was Barley’s 
effect upon the girldom of the district. It was 
said by some reckless tongues that the flashy 
Gregory women dressed more showily than ever, 
and that they were even on the point of becom- 
ing agnostics; but this apostasy only amounted 
to an inquiry they had addressed to Barley as 
to where they could obtain any reliable informa- 
tion as to the precise meaning and application of 
the term agnosticism ” ; but this was to some 
extent counteracted by their remark that they 
did not think the fox’s head in his scarf-pin could 
have cost more than eighteenpence, and, indeed, 
Elizabeth went so far as to say that she was con- 
vinced he wore a dicky. If the boys of Linstead 
had known this, Darjey would have fallen like 


RALPH CULVER 


177 


Dagon, because our mothers washed and starched 
and ironed our shirts, Saturday by Saturday, be- 
fore our very eyes. A dicky was a suggestive 
comment on agnosticism. It is still due to Bar- 
ley Fairbank to say that, by example rather than 
by precept, he had a visible effect upon the 
dressing of the whole town. If I wanted any 
proof of this I should at once find it in the fact 
that Jimmy Robson wrote an illustrated article 
about it in the District Unicorn,” with Barley 
Fairbank as the central figure. If this had been 
all I would not press the evidence very heavily 
against him, but I am afraid it can be proved 
that even Jimmy himself — so frail is human na- 
ture at its best estate — had been so far affected 
by the new climate as to deliberately order the 
barber to cut his hair in a new way. Boys who 
had hitherto been content with Billy Hunter’s 
shoes began to grow uneasy as to their fit and 
style, and to accuse Billy of being behind the 
times, and to intimate, when he was well out of 
hearing, that he was a stupid ode duffer, and 
a disgrace to the toon.” The poor old sutor was 
worried into despair by the disparagement that 
was heaped upon him, and by the biting allusion 


178 


TYNE FOLK 


to Fairbank's elastic sides and shiny buttons 
which deafened him on all sides. In the mean- 
time Darley well knew that he was impressing 
his manners on the town, and that he was spe- 
cially affecting its feminine sentiment. There 
were, of course, exceptions to the homage which 
men and women offered to the apostle of fashion- 
able dressing. For example. Tommy Gibson, 
the smoking vegetarian, did not hesitate to say 
— in fact, he created opportunities for saying — 
that Darley was not worth soopin’* up wi’ a 
buzzom, the dorty bowdykite ” — language which 
was, at least, tinged with exaggeration. But 
Tommy was no doubt provoked, for Tommy 
smoked a black cutty, while Darley smoked a 
dandy meerschaum. The fact is that Darley’s 
dressing and swagger and agnosticism created 
such an epidemic in Linstead that the Rev. Rob- 
ert Sands thought to stay the plague by making, 
in a Sunday morning prayer, a dark allusion to 
“ devotees of fashion and the victims of philoso- 
phy, falsely so called,” a prayer which Billy 
Hunter pronounced to be '' the most ellyquent 
prayer” to which he ever said ”Amen.” But 
* Sweeping. 


RALPH CULLER 


179 


the Gregory women giggled, and afterward 
asked Nickle Fairbank how he liked to have 
Darley prayed for “ as if he was a Timbuctoo.” 

This was the fine fellow, the dashing young 
fellow, the military-looking young fellow, who 
had honored the shepherd and his daughter by 
deigning to take notice of them, that, through 
his humility, he might cover their obscurity with 
luster. With half simple-minded Linstead lan- 
guishing for him, who would not have been 
proud to have had him for a husband or a son- 
in-law? The young ladies of Linstead were 
thrilled with a dumbly expectant joy when they 
saw Darley coming toward them, and they be- 
trayed their joy by pretending not to see him, 
and the nearer he came, the more absorbed did 
they become in the humble shop-windows of the 
little town. If Darley shook hands with certain 
of the young ladies, — quite a special set, — they 
interpreted the pressure of his hand according 
to their own feelings, without being masonically 
correct in all instances. They were silly, of 
course, and some readers will despise them; 
but, as they were women, we will not be hard 


180 


TYNE FOLK 


upon them. Young feeling is apt to make a 
fool of itself ; why, even Adam did, and Eve 
before him. You who are sneering most may 
be dangerously near the edge of the cliff. And 
Darley thought nothing about any of them! 
That’s always the way. Sometimes we are more 
conscious of the thorn than of the rose. But 
surely Darley gave some of them reason to be 
slightly fluttered? Yes. He had a ‘‘fetching** 
smile, and he could use his eyes significantly, and 
could sometimes turn round to watch departing 
figures. I know it. And Darley knew it. And 
feminine Linstead was aware of it. Yet all the 
time Darley’s heart was at Fishbrook, one pair 
of young, guileless eyes perpetually arresting 
the vision of his heart. But he did not go about 
things in an open, manly way. He lingered at 
distant gates; he moved stealthily under the 
shadow of hedges; he dawdled by the farm 
stream as if intent on fishing. Solomon knew 
not the way of a man with a maid, the way of 
love, the way in which one young heart gets into 
another. But who would have an explained 
love? As soon worship an explained God. 
Darley got into the shepherd’s house on some 


RALPH CULVER 


181 


pretense connected with fishing, and, that once 
done, the rest was easy. We have come now to 
the time of Nickle Fairbank’s visit, and we want 
to know what came of it. Not for a long time 
could I get to know exactly how things went. 
I never heard the story right through from be- 
ginning to end, but bit by bit I picked it up, and 
now I can give it all. 

Without doubt, Ralph Culver was in a surly 
condition of mind when Nickle Fairbank ap- 
proached him, and nothing of the surliness was 
softened by Nickle’s untimely jauntiness of man- 
ner. The rural mind is slow, and its grip of right- 
eousness is tenacious. It is a long time in coming 
to conclusions, and a long time in getting away 
from them. Ralph was tenacious above many. 

Young men will be young men,” said Nickle, 
“ and we must bear with them.” 

The tone in which Nickle said this kindled the 
shepherd’s anger. 

” It’s all right now,” Nickle continued ; ” they 
are man and wife by love and law.” 

” Are they married? ” Ralph hoarsely replied. 

” Certainly. I have given you a son, and you 
have given me a daughter.” 


182 


TYNE FOLK 


” Where were they married ? ” 

That I don’t know, but Darley will give you 
all particulars, of course.’* 

“ Who married them ? ” 

“ There again you beat me, but your daughter 
can tell you, no doubt.” 

The man who has ruined my daughter mayn’t 
have married her.” 

Can I see your daughter? ” 

No.” 

But I want to assure her of my affection and 
welcome her into my family.” 

What poor shepherd on any hillside would not 
gratefully respond ? Is it possible that so obscure 
a creature as a shepherd could fail to be excited 
and thankful ? Think of a military-looking young 
man ! But Ralph Culver had “ a city of the 
mind,” and a throne within. So Nickle Fairbank 
went back with a new sensation in his heart. 
He had seen a man he could not patronize. He 
had heard a voice whose tone was independent 
and sincere. 

Ralph made it his business to search out the 
whole case, and Kitty was warmly with him in 
all his eager quest, for she knew as a fact that 


RALPH CULLER 


183 


she had regained honor by marriage. ** I know, 
father, that I was led away, and I cried my eyes 
out when you were thinking badly of me. We 
went to Westfield and got married before a regu- 
lar minister, and, when the wedding was over, 
the minister had hardly got the ‘Amen' out of his 
mouth when he shook hands with me and called 
me Mrs. Fairbank.” Kitty was truthful enough. 
Yes, it was certainly a “ regular minister,” and the 
regular minister did call her Mrs. Fairbank, and 
Kitty was made happy by the morning’s work. 

“Yes,” said the regular minister, when Ralph 
Culver called on him, “ I remember the circum- 
stance quite clearly — a young man called on me, 
and told me that he had been married at the 
register office, and that both he and his wife 
would like to have the religious part of the cere- 
mony gone through at the chapel. I remembered 
the name of Fairbank quite well. I once preached 
at Linstead for my friend, the Rev. Robert Sands, 
and Fairbank was one of the men I met in the 
vestry. The young man told me all about Sands 
and the Independent chapel, and he was under 
the impression that he had heard me preach at 
Linstead. So I met them at the chapel and read 


184 


TYNE FOLK 


suitable passages of Scripture, and prayed with 
them and gave them my blessing. It was all in 
order. I was struck with the military bearing of 
the young fellow, and with the expressive eyes of 
the modest bride.” 

These revelations could not but sink deeply 
into poor Culver’s heart. But what was to be 
done with Kitty ? She looked upon herself as a 
married woman, so little did she know about the 
technicalities of law ; and how, then, to show her 
the actual facts of her miserable position? Hap- 
pily, her father had stipulated with her, in con- 
nection with the interview at Wardrow Hollow, 
that she was in all things to do exactly as he 
wished until he had satisfied himself that all was 
right, and to this condition Kitty assented with 
eagerness, because she knew that inquiry would 
end in complete satisfaction, and that Barley 
could then come to Fishbrook as if preceded by 
flying banners. 

'' Do you love me enough to trust me, my 
Kitty?” 

‘‘Yes, father.” 

“ Would you follow my advice whatever might 
be the consequences?” 


RALPH CULVER 


185 


I think so, father.” 

” Do you remember the register office at West- 
field?” 

” No.” 

'‘You were not married there?” 

“ Oh no. At the chapel, I told you, by a regu- 
lar minister.” 

“ And that’s all?” 

“Yes. There was nothing more to be done, 
and Darley was so kind.” 

“ Wouldn’t you have liked your father and 
mother to be there? ” 

Kitty cried softly. “ Oh yes, but things hap- 
pen we don’t want to happen. I cannot tell how 
it was. I was in a kind of dream. I seemed to 
be slipping down a steep bank without anything 
to take hold of. I want all that to be forgotten, 
now I am married.” 

“ But if you are not married, how then? ” 

“ It’s no use talking like that, father. You 
might as well ask me how it would be if I was not 
your child.” There was a gleam in Kitty’s eyes. 

Then her father told Kitty the facts, without 
a quiver in his voice. Oh, if he could but have 
sobbed ! But amputation is not to be done through 


186 


TYNE FOLK 


tears. Ralph cut his way through to the life with 
a hand of iron. Yes, he told Kitty everything, 
about Westfield, about the register office, about 
the minister, about the long-drawn ugly lie ; and 
in her turn Kitty listened without emotion. She 
asked for no verification, for her heart silently 
filled up all the gaps and told her point-blank 
that it was all true. Snack came and lay down 
at her feet and sighed. 

Ralph sent for Darley Fairbank. Was he go- 
ing to forgive him ? Was he going to cry peace, 
peace, where there was no peace? This would 
be quite unlike Ralph ; yet the father might over- 
power the man, and for Kitty’s sake he might 
go great lengths. The interview took place on 
Thursday evening, and to my amazement I was 
sent for to be present. I never wish to go through 
a similar scene. 

“ So you are married to my Kitty, are you ? ” 

“I am.” 

If you said you were not you would be a 
cruel liar, eh ? ” 

Yes.” 

''You were married at the register office at 
Westfield?” 


RALPH CULVER 


187 


^^Yes.” 

“ Then you had a religious service by a regular • 
minister? ” 

Yes.” 

” And you are Kitty’s lawfully wedded hus- 
band? ” 

” Yes, and I remain here to claim her.” 

“You shall have her.” 

“ Thanks.” 

“You take her, for better or for worse, for 
richer or poorer?” 

“ Yes.” 

“ So you shall.” 

“Hurry up, then; I have no time to waste 
talking to you.” 

“You are a busy man, I suppose?” 

“ Now don’t jaw any more about this. Let 
Kitty come with me.” 

“ Another moment. How does it come that 
your names are not in the books of the register 
office at Westfield?” 

“ Not?” 

“ No. You scoundrel, you know you were 
never there!” 

Barley was about to turn away. “ Wait,” said 


188 


TYNE FOLK 


Culver, in a thrilling tone; ‘'your life is in my 
hand — stand, you dog! Now, you have to marry 
this girl. I will keep you under my eye until you 
do it. Your father must buy a special license, and 
I will take you from this place and make you stand 
at the market- cross of Linstead, and make you 
confess your damnable sin, or this knife” (produc- 
ing a formidable blade) “shall stop your heart.” 

Darley cried for the police ; then he cried mur- 
der; then he begged to be forgiven; the only 
answer being that Ralph felled him to the ground. 
Then came a process I have no wish to see re- 
peated. Ralph tore off the dandy coat and turned 
it inside out ; then he took out the pin with the 
fox’s head, and pulled off a signet-ring, and drew 
out a fancy pipe, and threw them all into the 
stream ; then the coat was forced on wrong side 
out, and the arms were bound with a strong rope, 
and finally the curled locks were cut off with a 
pair of sheep- shears, and the despoiled dandy 
was locked up in a stable until the legal formali- 
ties of a wedding could be complied with. And 
Snack was appointed jailer. 

It fell to my lot to see Nickle Fairbank respect- 
ing the conduct of the whole case, and it is but 


RALPH CULLER 


189 


justice to say that he was at once shocked and 
enraged on hearing an account of Barley’s be- 
havior. It was my duty to tell him everything, 
even including the degradation Barley had under- 
gone at the hands of Ralph Culver. He said no 
treatment could be severe enough, and he was 
prepared, he continued, to take the degradation 
as in large part due to himself. 

I am made,” he added, to possess the sins 
of my youth.” After a moment he continued: 
” Oh, the shame of it ! I must see poor Culver 
and deeply apologize to him. This thing shall 
be righted, cost what it may. Whatever Culver 
wants shall be done ; it will be poor satisfaction 
to him, but it is all we can give. I am more to 
blame than Barley, though I cannot excuse him. 
The hand of God is heavy upon me.” I had 
never heard so rich a tone in Fairbank’s voice, or 
noticed so earnest an expression on his face. His 
old attempts at jauntiness he had utterly aban- 
doned, and his self-confidence was pitiably un- 
able to sustain him. From my heart I pitied the 
poor old man. 

Culver will not release your son until the 
wedding-day.” 


190 


TYNE FOLK 


Quite right. Not a moment shall be lost. 
The money is ready.” 

“There is one condition Culver will not relax.” 

“ What’s that?” 

“ That your son shall stand at the market-cross 
and confess the wrong he has done.” 

“ Couldn’t he make it a little easier, for my 
sake? ” 

“ No. It is his daughter he thinks of. Nothing 
can change him.” 

“ Could not his daughter plead for Darley ? ” 

“No.” 

“ Could not her mother bring him to a better 
mind? ” 

“ No.” 

Nickle Fairbank went to the window, and 
looked up into the high elms, and sighed, and 
trembled. Turning to a side- table he took up a 
Bible, and the words (he showed me the place) 
he opened on were these : “ There is a way that 
seemeth good unto a man, but the end thereof is 
death.” Laying down the Bible he said in a 
hoarse voice: 

“ God’s will be done. Culver shall settle every- 
thing. Tell him so.” 


RALPH CULLER 


191 


It was Fairbank himself who subdued Culver. 
It is always submission that wins. I told Ralph 
exactly how the old man looked on the whole 
case, and when I came to the words, “ Culver 
shall settle everything,” Ralph broke into tears 
such as I had never seen before. I always knew 
that he had a great heart — quite a heaven of a 
heart. 

You have a great opportunity now, Mr. Cul- 
ver.” 

What to do?” 

“To show mercy to a man who is in your 
power.” 

“ Mercy?” 

“ Yes. A man is never so near God as when 
he shows mercy.” 

“ But I need mercy.” 

“ Then show it. ' Blessed are the merciful ; for 
they shall obtain mercy.’ ” 

“ Will this wretch marry the woman he has 
shamed? ” 

“ On that I give you my word of honor.” 

“ Did his father leave it in my hands to settle 
everything? ” 

“ He did.” 


192 


TYNE FOLK 


Come with me. I am reeling. Lead me to 
the stable quietly.” 

As we went I told him all legal arrangements 
had been made, and every appointment was set- 
tled, so he need not have any anxiety. I told 
him he had acted as a father was bound to act, 
but that now he could take up a position of won- 
derful grace and dignity; for he was no longer 
dealing with stubbornness, but with genuine 
penitence. I dropped my own rough words and 
borrowed the music of my Master: ‘"Forgive us 
our trespasses, as we forgive them that trespass 
against us. . . . And when they had nothing to 
pay, he frankly forgave them both. . . . He is 
kind to the unthankful and to the evil, . . . 
until seventy times seven.” And that day Jesus 
wrought another miracle : when the wedding took 
place, “both Jesus was called, and His disciples, 
to the marriage,” and the wedding wine flowed 
from the fountain of God’s own heart. 


ARTHUR BOYCE 


Mally Morris was a blind old body who 
lived in Crane Alley, Linstead. Mally was not 
always blind ; in fact, until within ten years of her 
death she had no need to wear spectacles. Mally 
would have figured well in the Bible itself, be- 
cause of her spiritual loveliness, her insight, her 
patience, her desire that all souls should be saved. 
I must now write her epitaph by telling what she 
did for Arthur Boyce. What she did for Arthur 
she wanted to do for the whole world. 

Arthur Boyce had made his way to two and 
twenty through as many deprivations and cruel- 
ties as ever fell to the lot of Tyneside poverty. 
His father, Hugh Boyce, was a collier, drunken, ir- 
ritable, and villainous in every disposition. I knew 
him, and would, in cool judgment, call him beast, 
but for my respect for lives subhuman. Arthur’s 
mother, Ellen Boyce, was one of those sweet, 
193 


194 


TYNE FOLK 


clinging, inoffensive women who easily lend them- 
selves to the process of being trampled on. Her 
delight was in home life, in a few flowers on the 
window-sill, and in hymn tunes that could be 
softly hummed ; tastes simple enough, yet going 
back, when searched into and understood, to a 
remote and serene antiquity. Without knowing 
it, her simplicity went right back to heavenliness, 
as it was first enjoyed on earth. The drunken 
collier had no patience with such tastes and 
habits. In drink he was a fiend. Blow followed 
blow on wife and child when he was rum-poi- 
soned ; and when he was sober his penitence took 
the form of sulkiness, hardly less cruel than his 
brutality. Neither mother nor little boy dare 
speak above a whisper. They remarked that 
when Hugh was most quiet he was often most 
dangerous ; hence they would glance at him fur- 
tively when he sat in his hard wooden chair and 
shook his right foot to and fro as his legs were 
crossed. The monotonous shaking of that foot 
was an awful sign in the bare little room where 
the unhappy Boyces lived. Can we wonder that 
the mother and her boy often ran away from such 
a man? They did. Many a time I have known 


ARTHUR BOYCE 


195 


them homeless, penniless, breadless, yet hand in 
hand, fleeing from the wretch that should have 
been their protector. Rum-sellers are one thing, 
rum-drinkers another. Arthur told me that he 
well remembered how, on one flight from the 
miserable house, they wandered ten weary miles, 
and then called at the back door of a farm-house 
on the banks of the Tyne. The poor woman 
asked nothing for herself, but said to the farmer’s 
comely daughter — comely with the comeliness of 
buttercups and primroses and soft-eyed pansies : 

'' Mebby ye’ll gi’ the bairn a bit breid.” 

Was ever that appeal rejected at the door of a 
Tyneside farm? In God’s name, never! I often 
wondered whether it could have been Nathan 
Oxley’s farm. Arthur thought he would know 
it again, but alas! he was never strong enough 
to undertake a journey of inquiry. That mother- 
prayer, “Mebby ye’ll gi’ the bairn a bit’ breid,” 
never escaped the child’s memory, and it never 
ceased to be answered in many ways by Arthur 
himself, for he never passed a needy child without 
some token of love, on the plea that his mother 
whispered in his ear, “ Mebby ye’ll gi’ the bairn 
a bit breid.” And, indeed, that mother-prayer 


196 


TYNE FOLK 


has had a wonderful influence in my own life. 
Many a trifling coin has that sweet appeal drawn 
from me when I have seen hungry children look- 
ing eagerly into a baker’s window. They may 
have thought I was a kind man, whereas I was 
but an answered prayer sent by the Father to 
grant the silent petition of child-hunger. Arthur 
Boyce was a drunkard’s “ bairn,” and his mother 
a drunkard’s wife. I was glad when Arthur died, 
because if he had lived he would have become a 
great man, and then he would have been often 
reminded that he had been raised out of the gut- 
ter, for there are minor Christians who can never 
strike unless they strike under the belt 

Mally Morris often sheltered Arthur and his 
mother when they fled from the cruel wolf at 
home. The mother told me she was many a time 
tempted to make away with herself, because her 
life had been turned into a daily misery, and she 
might have yielded ” but for the bairn.” Aye, we 
all know the meaning of that! In many ways 
the Child saves the world; therefore shall His 
name be called Wonderful! What I have now 
to tell will show the kind of influence Mally had 
over the religious training of Arthur. Mally was 


ARTHUR BOYCE 


197 


practically his only religious teacher, and, though 
she had never learned letters,” she evidently 
saw a long way into the place and purpose of the 
kingdom of God. The dear young fellow was 
within sight of the grave when I took the follow- 
ing notes — some of them, indeed, written at his 
bedside : 

” Mally says there is no death,” said he, his 
face luminous. 

” That is true,” said I, softly pressing his hand. 

** I told Mally I thought there was a black river 
flowing near.” 

“ And what did Mally say ? ” 

” She said it was the old, old river Jordan.” 

”Yes.” 

“ She said it ran between earth and heaven, in 
a valley.” 

” Yes.” 

” She said Jesus made a way through it for His 
disciples.” 

” Yes. Take time to get your breath.” 

“ Mally believes in heaven.” 

“ Of course.” 

” But not of course. Other people’s heaven is 
a long way off, millions and millions of miles, away 


198 


TYhIE FOLK 


up among the clouds ; but Mally says heaven is with- 
in her and round about her and part of her soul.” 

“Yes.” 

“ All Mally’s beautiful words about heaven are 
sparks of light.” 

“ I like to hear them,” said I, “ for they quite 
cheer me.” 

“ Mally says that angels are waiting at the river- 
side.” 

“Which side, Arthur?” 

“ Both sides. Oh, I wish I could see the 
happy angels! ” 

“ Why,” said I, “ Mally herself is a human 
angel.” 

“ Oh yes. But I mean other angels.” 

“ One at once,” said I ; “we can only see other 
angels after we have seen the angels near at hand. 
We must see goodness before we can see glory.” 

“Will I be drowned in the river? Don’t you 
hear it rolling past the foot of the bed ? Mally 
says she hears it, and she says she sees some one 
walking on it.” 

“Who is it?” 

“ Mally says it is a fair woman, and her hands 
are full of bread and fruit and flowers.” 


ARTHUR BOYCE 


199 


Don’t you know her? ” 

“No; she is so beautiful — she shines like the 
sun.” 

“ Well/’ said I, “ it seems to me I can hear her 
words! ’’ 

“You can! What are the words she is say- 
ing?’’ 

“ She is saying, ‘ Mebby ye’ll gi’ the bairn a 
bit breid.’ ’’ 

Arthur’s eyes opened wide — and so bright they 
were ! 

“ My mother!’’ said he. 

“ Yes. Jesus has sent her to take you over the 
river.’’ 

“ I know the words. I heard them at the farm. 
I want to say something. There are people who 
take care of such poor little children as I once 
was. They build houses for them. I want them 
to paint that above their front doors.’’ 

“What?’’ 

“Just what my mother said at the farm: 

‘ MEBBY ye’ll GI’ THE BAIRN A BIT BREID.’ 
Tell them to paint that, . . . tell them.’’ 

Then we waited awhile in silence. Silence is 
the night of speech. The heart sleeps in the 


200 


TYNE FOLK 


soothing lull. In that silence I heard the river 
lapping in soft splashes on its banks. Arthur 
had shut his eyes that he might see the angel 
woman on the Jordan and watch for the signs of 
her identity. Returning from his reverie, he said : 

“ ‘ They shall hunger no more, neither thirst 
any more ; neither shall the sun light on them, 
nor any heat. For the Lamb which is in the midst 
of the throne shall feed them, and shall lead them 
unto living fountains of waters: and God shall 
wipe away all tears from their eyes.’ ” 

Then again we were silent. 

^‘Where’s Mally?” 

Here, ma bairn,” said the blind angel. 

” Thank ye, Mally, thank ye. Take this little 
bag. There are three half-sovereigns in it. It 
took me years to save them. Open the bag when 
I have crossed the river. ...” 

And Methodist Mally sang: 

“ Part of the host have crossed the flood. 

And part are crossing now.” 

Once more we were eloquently silent. 

Some days after we opened the bag, and found 
in it this writing : 

“MEBBY ye’ll GI’ THE BAIRN A BIT BREID,” 




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